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THE  OFFICIAL  WIRT  REPORTS 

TO  THE  BOARD  OF  EDUCATION  OF 
NEW  YORK  CITY 


Comprising  the  Official  Reports  upon  Public  School  89  Brooklyn 

and  Public  Schools  28,  2,  42,  6,  50,  44,  5,  53,  40,  32, 

4  and  45  the  Bronx  and  an  appendix  showing  the 

more  extensive  reorganization  proposed 


WITH   AN   INTRODUCTION    BY 

HOWARD  W.  NUDD 

Director  of  the  Public  Education  Association 


PUBLIC  EDUCATION  ASSOCIATION  OF  THE 

CITY  OF  NEW  YORK 

8  West  40th  Street 

June,   1916 


THE  OFFICIAL  WIRT  REPORTS 

TO  THE  BOARD  OF  EDUCATION  OF 
NEW  YORK  CITY 


Comprising  the  Official  Reports  upon  Public  School  89  Brooklyn 
and  Public  Schools  28,  2,  42,  6,  50,  44,  5,  53,  40,  32, 
4  and  45  the  Bronx  and  an  appendix  showing  the 
more  extensive  reorganization 


WITH   AN   INTRODUCTION    BY 

HOWARD  W.  NUDD 

Director  of  the  Public  Education  Association 


PUBLIC  EDUCATION  ASSOCIATION  OF  THE 

CITY  OF  NEW  YORK 

8  West  40th  Street 

June,   1916 


INTRODUCTION 

In  publishing  the  official  reports  of  Mr.  Wirt  to  the  Board 
of  Education  of  New  York  City  which  are  presented  in  the 
following  pages,  the  Public  Education  Association  is  not  con- 
cerned, primarily,  in  setting  forth  the  specific  recommendations 
regarding  the  particular  schools  enumerated.  It  is  interested, 
rather,  in  making  available  for  public  consideration,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  more  general  reorganization  of  the  public  schools 
contemplated  by  the  city  authorities,  Mr.  Wirt's  own  statement 
of  the  fundamental  ideas  underlying  the  duplicate  or  multiple 
type  of  organization,  known  as  the  Gary  plan.  The  reports 
printed  in  this  pamphlet  cover  only  the  twelve  schools  in  the 
Bronx  and  the  one  school  in  Brooklyn,  which  the  Board  of 
Education  decided  to  reorganize  over  a  year  ago.  As  the  funda- 
mental ideas  underlying  this  reorganization  are  the  same  as 
those  which  underly  the  proposed  reorganization  on  a  wider 
scale,  the  Public  Education  Association  believes  that  the  appear- 
ance of  these  reports  at  this  time  will  be  of  assistance  to  laymen 
and  educators  alike  in  comprehending  what  the  city  is  planning 
to  do  in  a  thorough-going  way  for  the  children  in  all  of  the 
public  schools. 

After  a  protracted  series  of  joint  conferences  the  educational 
and  city  authorities  recently  decided  to  extend  the  duplicate 
type  of  organization  to  fifty  schools,  located  in  the  several 
boroughs.  The  details  of  this  decision  are  contained  in  an 
official  statement  issued  by  the  Board  of  Estimate  and  Apportion- 
ment of  the  City  of  New  York  under  date  of  May  9,  1916.* 
The  reorganization  of  these  fifty  schools  will  affect  over  143,000 
children,  and  will  eliminate  to  a  large  extent  the  part-time  and 
double-session  evil  in  the  city  schools.  The  expenditures  for 
this  purpose  comprise  over  three  and  a  half  millions  of  dollars 
for  the  reconstruction  of  existing  buildings;  over  a  million  and 
a  half  for  the  entire  replacement  of  old  buildings,  and  nearly 
two  millions  for  new  buildings  in  new  locations,  making  a  total 
of  nearly  seven  millions  of  dollars  for  the  first  step  in  the 
reorganization  of  all  of  the  schools  in  New  York  City  on  the 
multiple-school,  or  work-study-play,  basis. 

A  plan  which  eliminates  the  evils  of  part-time  is  in  itself 
desirable,  apart  from  the  enriched  opportunities  it  offers  in 
addition  to  the  traditional  school  program.  The  amount  of  part- 
time  in  New  York  City  is  much  greater  than  would  appear  from 
the  number  of  children  officially  recorded  as  in  attendance  less 
than  five  hours  daily.  The  actual  condition  is  indicated  by  the 
following  excerpt  from  the  official  statement  of  the  Board  of 
Estimate  above  referred  to  : 

*See  summary  in  tabular  form  in  Appendix,  pages  57-60. 

3 


:     ;    .. 
±6Q 


"The  real  school  housing  problem  in  New  York  City,  and  in 
every  city,  is  not  the  elimination  of  so  many  children  on  part- 
time  and  double-sessions.  New  York  has  117,000  children  on 
part-time  and  double-sessions.  But  if  the  Board  of  Superin- 
tendents were  to  reduce  to  normal  size  the  309  classes  with 
registers  of  above  55,  and  the  991  classes  with  registers  of  51 
to  55,  and  the  716  classes  with  registers  of  50,  and  the  3,908 
classes  with  registers  of  45  to  50,  such  reduction  of  over-size 
classes  would  add  100,000  more  children  to  part-time  and  double- 
sessions.  And  if  the  various  emergency  classrooms  and  unsatis- 
factory school  buildings  were  vacated,  another  70,000  children 
would  be  added  to  part-time  and  double-sessions.  Of  the  total 
register  of  658,904  in  the  regular  grades  (1A-8B)  (December 
31,  1915),  287,000  might  have  been  better  off  on  part-time.  A 
child  in  a  good  schoolroom,  in  a  class  of  normal  size,  on  part- 
time  for  four  hours,  is  better  off  than  in  an  over-size  class  five 
hours,  or  in  an  unsanitary  and  unsuitable  classroom  for  five 
hours.  The  real  problem  in  New  York  City  is  to  provide  new 
schoolroom  capacity  for  58,500,  or  one-half  of  the  number  on 
part-time  and  double-sessions,  to  relieve  such  conditions,  and, 
in  addition,  provide  new  schoolroom  capactiy  for  85,000  children, 
to  reduce  over-sized  classes  and  eliminate  emergency  and  unsatis- 
factory classrooms.  With  the  traditional  plan  this  would  neces- 
sitate the  construction  of  3,500  classrooms,  at  a  cost  of 
$42,000,000,  on  present  estimated  cost  of  $12,000  per  classroom, 
and  no  provision  would  be  made  for  future  growth. 

"The  problem  of  providing  a  school  seat  for  every  child  is 
not  difficult,  for  New  York  City  now  has,  and  always  has  had, 
more  school  seats  than  children  in  the  schools.  The  real  prob- 
lem is  to  provide  a  school  seat  for  every  child  at  the  place  where 
the  child  can  use  it  in  a  shifting  population,  and  to  scrap  the 
worn-out  plan  and  equipment.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know 
how  many  unused  school  sittings  New  York  would  now  have  if 
the  city  had  been  able  at  all  times  to  provide  a  school  seat  for 
each  child  at  the  place  where  he  could  use  it.  No  city  of  any 
size  has  yet  been  able  to  provide  satisfactory  school  accommoda- 
tions, on  the  basis  of  a  reserved  seat  for  every  child,  at  the  place 
where  each  child  happens  to  be  at  the  time." 

It  is  important  to  remember,  however,  that  the  Wirt  plan 
is  not  in  any  sense  a  device  to  eliminate  part-time,  although  its 
immediate  influence  upon  that  problem  in  New  York  City  has 
tended  to  create  that  impression.  The  plan  is  rather  a  method 
of  organizing  the  school  which  extends  to  all  of  the  children  in 
the  community  the  full  advantage  of  all  available  educational  re- 
sources. When  the  agitation  over  the  extension  of  this  plan  in  New 
York  City  began  over  a  year  ago  the  statement  was  frequently 
made  that,  while  it  might  operate  effectively  in  a  small  city  like 
Gary,  it  was  not  suited  to  conditions  in  a  large  city  like  New 
York.  In  view  of  the  demonstration  which  has  been  made  in* 


the  Bronx  and  in  Brooklyn,  in  the  face  of  almost  insuperable 
obstructions,  and  in  view  of  the  simplicity  and  general  applica- 
bility of  the  plan,  as  set  forth  in  the  following  pages,  the  fallacy 
of  that  contention  is  obvious.  Indeed,  the  contrary  would_seem 
to  be  true — that  the  plan  will  work  better  in  a  large  city  than  in 
a  small  one,  because  it  aims  to  mobilize  in  the  school  all  of  the 
community  resources  which  have  educational  value;  the  greater 
such  resources  in  a  given  community  are,  the  more  extensive 
will  be  the  educational  opportunities  provided  in  the  school.  The 
advantages  of  such  a  plan  for  New  York  would  thus  seem  to  be 
infinitely  greater  than  for  a  small  city  like  Gary,  and  much 
greater  than  for  almost  any  other  city  in  America. 

The  failure  to  grasp  this  point  has  doubtless  arisen  from  an 
inability  to  discriminate  between  what  the  plan  itself  is  and 
what  it  makes  possible.  Mr.  Wirt's  contribution  has  been,  not 
so  much  in  the  field  of  educational  theory,  as  in  the  field  of 
educational  engineering.  He  has  simply  made  it  administratively 
and  economically  possible  to  secure  for  all  children  a  larger 
measure  of  the  play  and  work  opportunities  which  educators 
have  been  advocating  for  years  as  essential  to  a  well-rounded 
education.  The  significant  feature  of  the  Gary  plan  is  not,  there- 
fore, the  particular  kind  of  subject  matter  or  the  specific  type  of 
opportunities  which  Mr.  Wirt  is  at  present  offering  in  Gary,  but 
rather  the  principle  of  the  duplicate  or  continuous  operation  of 
all  available  educational  opportunities.  This  so-called  "balanced- 
load"  method  multiplies  the  usefulness  of  each  facility,  and  thus 
makes  possible,  with  every  dollar  that  is  spent  for  school 
purposes,  a  richer  school  life  for  every  child  than  could  other- 
wise be  afforded.  If  this  point  is  clearly  grasped  a  community 
which  is  considering  the  advisability  of  adopting  the  Wirt  plan 
of  organization  for  its  own  public  school  system  will  concern 
itself,  not  primarily  with  what  is  being  done  in  Gary,  or  how  well 
it  is  carried  on  there,  but  rather  with  the  extent  to  which  this  plan 
will  enable  its  own  teaching  corps  to  achieve  better  results  than 
formerly  with  the  means  at  hand.  It  will  regard  the  organiza- 
tion under  this  plan  solely  as  an  improved  instrument  in  school 
procedure,  and  will  realize  that,  as  before,  the  results  achieved 
will  depend  to  a  large  extent  upon  the  vision  of  the  teacher  and 
her  skill  as  a  craftsman. 

In  considering  an  educational  program  for  a  great  city  like 
New  York  it  is  also  important  to  remember  that  no  large  city  is 
a  social  unit.  The  many  districts  of  New  York  are  practically 
as  distinct  from  each  other  in  nationality,  customs  and  economic 
and  social  conditions  as  are  an  equal  number  of  small  towns  of 
the  same  size  and  social  composition  scattered  over  a  wider  area 
and  existing  politically  as  separate  communities.  Each  of  these 
districts,  like  each  of  the  small  towns,  is  in  itself  a  problem. 
Because  of  this  fact  the  duplicate-school  plan  is  especially  adapted 
to  a  large  city.  It  individualises  the  schools,  which  have  lost 


their  identity  in  the  deadening  routine  of  a  huge  "system,"  by 
providing  a  flexible  program,  which  enables  each  more  readily  to 
meet  the  particular  needs  of  its  own  locality. 

There  has  been  much  written  and  said  about  the  reorganiza- 
tion in  New  York  City.  The  statements  which  have  been  issued 
by  the  Public  Education  Association  in  this  connection  are 
enumerated  in  the  list  of  publications  printed  on  the  cover  of  this 
pamphlet.  In  all  of  these  statements  the  Association  has  empha- 
sized the  fact  that  it  has  had  solely  in  view  the  welfare  of  the 
children  in  the  schools.  It  has  hoped  that  its  efforts  to  promote 
a  thorough  public  discussion  of  the  issues  involved  would  assist 
in  securing,  at  an  early  date,  a  longer  school  day  and  a  richer 
educational  program  than  are  now  provided.  It  has  dwelt  upon 
the  factor  of  economy  only  because  it  was  convinced  that  these 
advantages  could  not  be  obtained  unless  a  plan  were  found  which 
was  feasible  within  the  city's  financial  ability.  The  Association 
believes  that  the  welfare  of  the  children  is  advanced  to  the  greatest 
extent  when  school  and  city  authorities  adopt  every  sound 
measure  for  obtaining  every  possible  educational  advantage  for 
every  available  dollar  of  school  funds. 

Furthermore,  while  the  Association  has  realized  that  Mr. 
Wirt's  plan  is  not  primarily  a  device  for  eliminating  part-time, 
but  rather  for  making  available  a  richer  educational  life  for  all  of 
the  children  in  the  schools,  it  has  shared  with  city  and  school 
officials  the  belief  that  the  part-time  situation  must  be  cleared  up 
before  other  necessary  improvements,  such  as  a  reduction  in  size 
of  classes,  can  be  hoped  for. 

It  is  in  this  spirit  that  the  Association  has  added  the  follow- 
ing reports  of  Mr.  Wirt  to  the  list  of  its  own  statements,  in  order 
that  the  general  public,  as  well  as  the  men  and  women  in  the 
public  schools,  may  learn  from  first-hand  sources  what  Mr.  Wirt 
proposes  for  the  New  York  City  schools.  It  has  been  led  to  do  this 
because  the  school  authorities  have  thus  far  been  unable  to  make 
these  reports  readily  accessible  in  printed  form  for  public  con- 
sideration. The  plans  and  purposes  of  the  so-called  Ettinger  plan 
have  been  set  forth  in  detail  in  a  pamphlet  distributed  rather 
widely  a  year  ago  by  the  Board  of  Education. 

HOWARD  W.  NUDD, 

Director,  Public  Education  Association. 
June  27,  1916. 


The  Reorganization  of 
Public  School  89     - 
Brooklyn,N.Y. 

Report  Made  January  19, 1915,  to  Thomas  W. 

Churchill,  Board  of  Education,  New 

York  City,  by  William  Wirt 

On  October  31st,  1914,  the  Parents'  Association  of  Public  School 
89,  Brooklyn,  asked  for  relief  from  the  conditions  existing  in  this 
school,  because  of  overcrowding.  To  bring  about  this  relief,  a  demand 
was  made  by  the  Taxpayers  and  Parents  for  the  immediate  erection 
of  fourteen  portable  buildings  to  be  followed  by  a  new  building,  or  an 
annex  to  the  present  building.  With  your  permission  I  visited  this 
school  with  a  view  to  suggesting  how  the  situation  could  be  met.  On 
November  6th  a  new  school  program  was  put  into  effect. 

I  would  point  out  that,  although  the  initial  reason  for  taking  up 
the  problem  of  Public  School  89  was  to  relieve  the  congestion  in 
that  school,  the  sole  purpose  controlling  the  new  program  was  to  give 
to  the  children  richer  opportunities  for  study,  work  and  play. 

As  this  demonstration  in  Public  School  89  illustrates  the  method 
that  it  will  be  necessary  to  pursue  in  the  reorganization  of  nearly 
all  of  your  schools,  it  is  important  to  note,  step  by  step,  the  transfor- 
mation in  this  one  school. 

Public  School  89  lacks  many  of  the  modern  *9,cilities  which  are 
found  in  other  schools  in  the  city.  For  example,,  ft  does  not  have  a 
gymnasium,  well  arranged  play-room,  public  play  park  with  a  direc- 
tor in  charge,  branch  of  the  public  library,  well  equipped  auditorium, 
sufficient  wardrobes,  and  baths.  While  it  would  have  been  much  easier 
to  make  a  demonstration  in  a  better  equipped  school,  yet  the  demon- 
stration at  Public  School  89  is  all  the  more  valuable  because  of  the 
fact  that  it  has  been  made  with  very  limited  facilities,  and  because  it 
has  been  in  operation  for  twelve  weeks  practically  without  any  ex- 
penditure for  additional  accommodations. 

THE  ETTINGEB  PROGRAM  OF  PUBLIC  SCHOOL  89. 

Prior  to  November  6,  1914,  there  were  forty  classes  attending 
School  89,  a  building  containing  twenty-six  class  rooms,  with  a 
program  planned  according  to  instructions  issued  to  elementary 
school  principals— "General  circular  No.  4,  1913-1914,  September 
23,  1913."  Twelve  of  the  forty  classes,  representing  the  upper 
grades,  were  on  full  time,  having  the  exclusive  use  of  twelve  of  the 
twenty-six  class  rooms.  The  remaining  twenty-eight  classes  were  or- 
ganized in  two  groups  of  fourteen  classes  each  and  were  accommo- 


dated  in  the  remaining  fourteen  class  rooms,   small  auditorium  and 
flye  cellar  rooms,  with  a  modification  of  the  following  program: 

ETTINGER  PROGRAM  AT  P.   S.   89,  BROOKLYN. 


School  Hours 

14    Class    Rooms 

Opening  Exercises  and  Study  in 
Auditorium  and  Playground 

8:30-  9:30  
9:30-10:30  
10:30-11:30  
11:30-12:30  
12:30-  1:30  
1:30-  2:30  
2:30-  3:30  
3:30-  4:30.  ... 

First  Group  —  14   Classes 
First  Group 
Second    Group  —  14    Classes 
Second  Group 
First  Group 
First  Group 
Second  Group 
Second  Group 

Second  Group  —  14  Classes 
First  Group  —  14  Classes 
First  Group  —  At  Luncheon 
Second  Group  —  At  Luncheon 

B 

Since,  with  the  old  program  twelve  classrooms  were  used  exclu- 
sively by  twelve  classes,  the  burden  of  the  over-crowding  was  placed 
entirely  upon  the  remaining  fourteen  class  rooms.  These  fourteen 
rooms  had  a  multiple  use  for  eight  hours  a  day,  but  the  auditorium 
and  playground  were  used  only  two  hours  a  day.  This  means  that 
the  auditorium  and  playground  were  congested  during  the  short  time 
they  were  in  use.  When  it  rained  and  all  the  children  were  required 
to  be  in  the  building  from  9:30  to  11:30,  nine  classes  were  forced  to 
use  the  five  cellar  rooms  at  one  time  as  study  rooms.  No  provision 
was  made  for  the  systematic  use  of  other  child  welfare  agencies. 

The  Ettinger  Program  Was  Not  Intended  to  Secure  Greater  Facilities 
for  Children  than  are  Offered  by  the  Ordinary  Single  System. 

The  principle  underlying  the  Ettinger  program  was  that  of  secur- 
ing the  traditional  five-hour  school  day  by  supplementing  the  four 
hours  in  the  class  room  with  an  additional  hour  in  playground  and 
auditorium.  Unfortunately,  the  latter  hour  was  used  as  much  as  possible 
for  study  in  quarters  that  were  never  intended  for  use  as  a  study 
room  and  cannot  be  made  satisfactory  for  study.  No  one  offers  the 
argument  that  such  a  five  hour  school  is  better  or  even  as  good  as 
five  hours  of  regular  class  room  work  in  the  ordinary  single  system 
school. 

This  program  was  not  intended  to  secure  greater  facilities  for 
children  than  the  ordinary  single  system  school  offers.  The  purpose 
was  to  secure  as  nearly  as  possible  the  traditional  work  of  the  regu- 
lar five-hour  full  time  school,  and  it  was  considered  only  as  a  tem- 
porary expedient  until  a  sufficient  number  of  new  schools  could  Z>« 
built  to  provide  the  regulation  full  time  school.  Since  the  main 
object  was  the  building  of  additional  school  buildings  for  permanent 
'relief,  no  funds  could  be  expended  upon  this  temporary  double  sys- 
tem expedient. 

The  Part  Time  Problem. 

I  do  not  know  of  a  finer  presentation  of  the  part  time  school  prob- 

8 


lem  than  that  of  your  special  committee  on  Part  Time  (Document 
No.  9-1913).  The  criticisms  that  I  have  made  of  the  Old  Program  at 
P.  S.  89  were  made  by  the  Part  Time  Committee  as  follows: 

TWO    CLASSES    WITH    TWO    TEACHERS    IN    ONE   ROOM. 

"One  of  the  devices  employed  to  keep  down  the  number  of 
classes  on  part  time  is  that  by  which  in  a  large  room,  seating 
sixty  or  thereabouts,  two  teachers  have  been  assigned  to  teach 
two  classes  in  the  one  room. 

This  device  violates  the  law  covering  legal  seating  capacity, 
and  does  not,  except  in  rare  cases,  afford  sufficient  floor  and  air 
spaces  for  each  pupil. 

Having  two  teachers  in  a  classroom  sometimes  leads  to  a 
clash  of  authority  and  a  failure  to  co-operate  in  the  details  of  the 
program. 

An  advantage  of  this  device  is  that  it  permits  fuller  operation 
of  the  group  system  and  develops  the  power  of  concentration  by 
which  both  pupil  and  teacher  are  enabled  to  focus  attention  in  the 
midst  of  distraction.  It  also  affords  an  opportunity  of  placing 
an  inexperienced  teacher  in  association  with  an  experienced 
teacher." 

CIRCULATING    OR    ALTERNATING    CLASSES. 

"One  objection  to  this  device  is  that  pupils  are  frequently 
obliged  to  occupy  accommodations  that  are  not  suited  to  them. 
A  class  in  penmanship  certainly  cannot  be  instructed  to  advantage 
in  a  kitchen  or  a  workshop.  Another  objection  is  that  pupils  are 
obliged  to  carry  their  materials  with  them  and  are  not  able  to  work 
as  satisfactorily  as  if  they  had  a  fixed  abode." 

CLASSES  IN  ASSEMBLY  ROOMS. 

"Pew  Assembly  Rooms  have  adequate  equipment  for  proper 
class  instruction.  The  lighting  and  ventilation  are  usually  unsatis- 
factory. The  difficulty  of  having  to  work  for  several  hours  amid 
distracting  noises  of  other  classes  certainly  interferes  with  progress. 
It  is  a  strain  to  teach  in  Assembly  Rooms  not  intended  for  class 
room  purposes.  The  ceilings  are  usually  too  high.  Fitting  these 
rooms  with  curtains  or  movable  partitions  does  not  improve  mat- 
ters." 

LOANED   OR   RENTED    ROOMS. 

"Rented  or  loaned  rooms  seldom  have  satisfactory  light,  venti- 
lation or  equipment." 

ROOMS    IN    TEMPORARY    BUILDINGS. 

"No  matter  how  well  constructed  temporary  or  portable  build- 
ings may  be,  they  are  not  satisfactorily  heated  or  ventilated.  They 
are  usually  too  hot  in  warm  weather  and  the  heat,  even  if  sufficient, 
cannot  be  evenly  distributed  in  cold  weather." 

ROOMS  IN  GYMNASIUMS,  LIBRARIES  AND  PLAYGROUNDS. 

"Gymnasiums,  libraries  and  playgrounds  were  never  intended 
for  classroom  purposes  and  their  use  as  such  is  open  to  many  if 
not  all  of  the  objections  cited  above.  In  addition,  such  use  de- 
prives pupils  of  advantages  which  the  equipment  was  intended  to 
afford. 

Therefore  your  committee  emphasizes  its  conclusion  that  the 
number  of  part  time  classes  actually  existing  is  no  indication  of  the 
number  of  classes  that  should  be  on  part  time  if  various  make- 
shifts were  not  employed." 


NEED  OF  NEW  BUILDINGS. 

"All  the  devices  that  may  be  employed  to  avoid  or  reduce  part 
time  are,  at  best,  but  temporary  expedients.  It  is  difficult  to  develop 
school  or  class  spirit  when  the  school  is  so  crowded  that  pupils  are 
being  marshaled  in  and  out  continually. 

Every  pupil  is  entitled  to  an  individual  seat  and  desk.  He  is 
entitled  to  a  place  in  which  his  outer  clothing  may  be  secured.  The 
teacher  is  entitled  to  the  exclusive  possession  of  a  classroom  which 
she  may  decorate  according  to  her  taste  and  in  the  decoration  of 
which  her  pupils  will  naturally  take  part  and  pride.  But,  to  give 
every  child  a  seat  according  to  the  legal  capacity  adopted,  would 
mean  the  immediate  construction  of  buildings  containing  100,000 
sittings.  This  would  be  50  buildings  of  2,000  sittings  each,  or  100 
buildings  of  1,000  sittings  each.  If  it  were  possible  to  begin  at 
once  the  construction  of  such  new  buildings,  they  would  hardly  be 
available  for  two  years,  during  which  time  conditions  would  con- 
tinue to  grow  more  and  more  serious.  In  view  of  this  fact  your 
committee  reiterates  that  its  recommendations  are  merely  tem- 
porary expedients  to  relieve  intolerable  conditions,  and  are  in  no 
way  intended  to  minimize  the  necessity  for  constructing  new  build- 
ings. Therefore,  these  plans  to  utilize  to  the  fullest  extent  the 
facilities  provided  are  not  advanced  with  the  idea  that  the  condi- 
tions which  would  be  established  by  their  adoption  are  to  be  perma- 
nent." 

THE  NEW  PROGRAM  AT  PUBLIC  SCHOOL  89  IS  NOT  A  PART 
TIME  PLAN. 

The  new  program  at  Public  School  89  is  in  no  sense  an  effort  to 
relieve  part  time  by  giving  the  children  as  nearly  as  possible  a  five 
hour  traditional  school  day,  until  a  new  building  can  be  built. 

The  sole  purpose  determining  the  program  now  in  use  at  this 
school  is  that  of  securing  a  six  hour  day  and  much  richer  oppor- 
tunities in  a  study,  work  and  play  school  with  a  co-ordination  of  the 
activities  of  all  child  welfare  agencies. 

In  describing  this  program  I  shall  take  up  (1)  the  permanent 
improvements  necessary  to  make  the  work  at  Public  School  891  thor- 
oughly effective,  (2)  the  cost  of  such  improvements  compared  with 
the  other  methods  suggested  for  meeting  the  situation,  (3)  a  descrip- 
tive outline  of  the  new  program,  (4)  how  the  new  program  offers 
greater  opportunities  for  all  children  in  a  study,  work  and  play 
school,  (5)  how  the  new  program  is  founded  on  a  sound  economic 
basis,  (6)  opportunity  new  program  affords  as  a  clearirg  house  for 
all  children's  activities,  (7)  opportunity  offered  for  vocational  train- 
ing and  (8)  concluding  recommendations. 

J.      PERMANENT    IMPROVEMENTS   WHICH   ARE    NEEDED    TO 

MAKE  THE  NEW  PROGRAM  AT  PUBLIC 

SCHOOL  89  EFFECTIVE. 

I  know  that  the  new  program  of  Public  School  89  aa  it  has  been 
during  the  twelve  weeks'  trial,  without  a  single  penny  spent  for 
building  improvements,  is  a  better  school  than  the  traditional  five  hour 
school  where  each  class  has  its  own  exclusive  class  room.  But  it 
can  be  made  a  convincing  demonstration  to  parents  and  school  offi- 
cials by  providing  the  necessary  additional  facilities. 

10 


The  parents  were  at  first  antagonistic  to  the  new  program  be- 
cause they  did  not  understand.  But  after  the  program  had  been  in 
operation  two  weeks,  a  meeting  was  held  with  twenty-two  mothers 
representing  the  executive  committee  of  the  Parents'  Association. 
They  decided  that  the  new  program  had  given  relief  and  that  it  would 
succeed  if  necessary  improvements  could  be  made  in  the  Building. 
After  twelve  weeks'  experience  with  the  new  program,  without  any 
expenditure  for  additional  facilities,  the  parents  came  out  enthusi- 
astically in  support  of  the  movement  to  give  the  new  viewpoint  of 
public  school  service  a  trial. 

The  parents  of  the  school  feel  that  they  ought  to  get  the  full 
benefits  of  making  a  more  economical  use  of  their  school  plant.  The 
only  question  that  I  have  not  been  able  to  answer  is  "How  many  hun- 
dred years  will  it  be  before  we  get  the  gymnasium,  etc?"  If  they 
could  have  seen  real  money  immediately  available  for  these  improve- 
ments as  was  suggested  in  my  report  of  July  31,  1914,  recommending 
the  appropriation  of  $150,000.00  for  the  equipment  and  remodeling  of 
six  experimental  schools,  the  opposition  would  have  been  negligible. 
By  making  the  following  improvements  at  Public  School  89  the  in- 
crease in  capacity,  16  class  rooms,  and  additional  facilities  can  be 
made  permanent: 

1 — On  the  site  now  owned  by  the  city  adjacent  to  the  present  build- 
ing erect  a  building  containing  a  gymnasium,  swimming  pool  and 
branch  of  the  public  library. 

2 — Equip  the  auditorium  with  a  suitable  platform,  stereopticon  lan- 
tern and  motion  picture  machine. 
3 — Equip  two  class  rooms  for  science  laboratories,  two  class  rooms 

for  drawing  studios  and  one  class  room  for  music  studio. 
4 — Provide  wardrobe  accommodations  for  sixteen  extra  classes. 
5 — Equip  each  class  room  for  use  by  two  teachers. 
6 — Purchase  remainder  of  block  for  permanent  playground. 

With  the  exception  of  the  playground,  the  foregoing  improvements 
will  cost  approximately  $40,000.00.* 

2.      COMPARISON   OF   THE    COST    OF   THESE   IMPROVEMENTS 

WITH  THE  COST  OF  OTHER  MEANS  OF  MEETING 

THE    SITUATION. 

The  estimated  cost  of  the  site  and  the  proposed  new  fifty-one 
unit  school  building  requested  to  relieve  Public  Schools  89,  152  and 
90  will  approximate  $510,000.00.  If  these  funds  were  applied  to  im- 
proving ten  schools  according  to  the  method  proposed  for  Public 
School  89  in  the  foregoing  section,  at  least  200  permanent  additional 
class  room  accommodations  would  be  made  available.  In  the  more 
modern  schools  a  less  expenditure  will  secure  greater  capacity. 

If  the  fourteen  portable  buildings  had  been  erected  as  demanded, 

$50,000.00  was  appropriated  for  the  above  improvements,  including 
three  additional  class  rooms  which  increased  the  capacity  by  six  addi- 
tional classes. 

11 


the  monthly  cost  for  janitor  service  alone  for  these  fourteen  portable 
buildings  would  have  been  $140.00.  A  large  added  maintenance,  oper- 
ating cost  and  capital  investment  would  have  been  required,  if  relief 
had  been  secured  in  the  manner  desired.  The  increased  cost  would 
not  have  brought  with  it  additional  facilities  other  than  the  exclusive 
right  to  a  desk  for  each  child.  The  twenty  per  cent,  increase  in 
school  time,  which  takes  the  children  from  the  demoralizing  life  of 
the  street,  and  the  other  advantages  of  the  new  program  in  public 
school  89  would  have  been  lost. 

Since  a  fifty-one  unit  building  adds  accommodation  for  only  forty- 
eight  traditional  full  time  classes,  the  satisfactory  accommodation  of 
sixteen  additional  classes  at  Public  School  89  would  justify  the  ex- 
penditure of  one-third  the  cost  of  the  new  building  and  site  upon 
Public  School  89,  or  approximately  $170,000.00.  But,  as  has  just  been 
pointed  out,  it  is  not  necessary  to  spend  anything  like  this  amount. 

If  one  hundred  of  the  most  congested  typical  schools  were  selected, 
I  believe  that  an  average  expenditure  of  $40,000.00  for  each  school 
would  be  sufficient  to  provide  the  immediately  necessary  additional  fa- 
cilities for  a  duplicate  school,  work,  study  and  play  program.  Some 
schools  would  need  play  space;  others,  swimming  pools;  and  some 
gymnasiums.  $20,000.00  to  $30,000.00  might  be  sufficient  for  some 
schools  and  $60,000.00  to  $70,000.00  be  required  for  others. 

$4,000,000.00  would  thus  permanently  increase  school  capacity  by 
at  least  2,000  school  rooms,  and,  distributed  in  the  one  hundred  most 
congested  centers,  would  practically  relieve  your  part  time  situation. 

Many  schools  with  slight  congestion  could  reorganize  their  pro- 
grams without  much  expense.  Many  undesirable  school  plants  could 
be  sold  and  the  funds  thus  secured  used  for  the  reorganization  of 
desirable  schools.  A  very  large  increase  in  school  capacity  can  thus 
be  secured  for  future  growth  in  population.  A  relatively  few 
new  buildings  would  have  to  be  built  in  localities  where  the  increase 
in  capacity  of  present  buildings  would  not  be  sufficient. 

3.      DESCRIPTION     OF     THE     NEW     PROGRAM     AT     PUBLIC 

SCHOOL  89. 

Under  the  Old  Program  there  were  only  forty  classes,  but  one 
class  was  very  large  and  was  divided  into  two  sections  with  two 
teachers  in  charge.  The  number  of  pupils  attending  this  school  is 
increasing  rapidly  and  therefore  a  program  for  forty-two  classes  was 
planned.  The  two  additional  classes  should  not  be  added  until  accom- 
modations are  secured  for  the  library  in  the  new  gymnasium  quar- 
ters, one  of  the  necessary  improvements  listed  on  page  5. 

The  forty-two  classes  in  the  New  Program  are  divided  into  two 
Duplicate  Schools  of  twenty-one  classes  each.  In  the  following  pro- 
grams these  duplicate  schools  are  designated  as  the  X  School  and  the 
T  School.  Description  of  each  school  will  be  taken  up  in  turn. 

The   X   School. 

Twenty-one  of  the  twenty-six  class  rooms  are  used  for  the  desired 

12 


academic  instruction  in  the  regular  school  subjects:  arithmetic,  lan- 
guage, reading,  history  and  geography.  The  five  remaining  class 
rooms  are  used  for  the  special  school  subjects — science,  drawing  and 
music.  In  addition  to  the  twenty-six  class  rooms,  the  school  has  a 
manual  training  shop,  a  domestic  science  laboratory,  a  small  auditorium, 
five  cellar  playrooms  and  a  kindergarten.  Because  the  class  rooms  set 
aside  for  special  work  are  not  yet  equipped,  they  are  for  the  time  being 
used  for  additional  regular  class  work.  Since  there  is  no  library 
or  librarian  and  since  the  manual  training  and  cooking  teachers  are 
at  the  building  only  half  time,  two  extra  special  teachers  are  in 
charge  of  the  playground. 

The  X  School  will  have  the  following  activities  and  facilities 
for  carrying  them  on  as  soon  as  the  improvements  recommended  are 
made. 


Type  of 
Work 

Regular 
Activities 

Special   Activities 

Academic 
Instruction 

General 
Exercises 

Play  and 
Phys.    Training 

Special  Work 

Facilities 
used    by 
each  type 
of   work 

21    Class 
Rooms 

Auditorium 

Playground 
Play   Rooms 
Pool  and  Baths 
Gymnasium 

2  M.  T.  Shops 
2  Science  Lab's 
2  Drawing 
Studios 
1  Music    Studio 
1   P.   Library 

The  21  classes  are  divided  into  three  divisions  of  7  classes  each, 
as  follows: 

Div.  1 — 7  classes,  6th,  7th  and  8th  grades. 

Div.  2 — 7  classes,  3rd,  4th  and  5th  grades. 

Div.  3 — 7  classes,  1st  and  2nd  grades. 

All  the  21  classes  from  the  first  grade  to  the  eighth  take  part  In 
these  activities  according  to  the  following  program. 


THE  X  SCHOOL. 


Regular  Activities 

Special  Activities 

School 
Hours 

Academic 
Instruction 

General 
Exercises 

Play  and  Phys. 
Training 

Special 
Work 

8:30-  9:20 

Arithmetic 
Divs.    1,    2,    3 

Auditorium 

9:20-10:10 

Language 
Divs.   1,   2,   3 

10:10-11:00 

Div.    1 

Div.   3 

Div.   7 

11:00-12:00 

Entire  X  School  at  Luncheon 

12:00-  1:00 

Reading 
Divs.    1.  2.   3 

1:00-  1:50 

History  &  Geo. 
Divs.   1,   2,   3 

1:50-  2:40 

Div.   3 

Div.  2 

Div.  1 

2:40-  3:30 

Div.  2 

Div.  3 

Div.  1 

3.  30—  4-30 

Div.   1 

13 


Summary  of  Time  Schedule. 

PUPILS'  TIME,   MINUTES  PER  WEEK. 
All  pupils  have  twenty  per  cent,  more  time  in  school. 


School 
Depart- 
ment 

Division  1 
Grades  6-8 

Division   2 
Grades  3-5 

Division   S 
Grades  1  and  2 

X 

School 

N.  T. 
Minimum 

X 

School 

N.  Y. 
Minimum 

X 

School 

New  York 
Minimum 

Academic..  „ 
Auditorium. 

Play    

1050 
250 
After 
School 
500 

840 

75 

80 

280 

1050 
250 

250 
250 

840 
75 

150 
250' 

1050 
250 

600 
Included 
time. 

Grade  * 
880 
75 

300 
in  ac 

Grade  2 
1090 
7| 

180 

ademic 

Work    

Total     

1800 
1800 

1275 
1500 

1800 
1800 

1315' 
1500' 

1800 
1800 

1255 
1200 

1345 
1500 

Full    time.. 

Teachers'  Activities. 

The  actual  time  spent  by  the  teachers  according  to  the  New  Pro- 
gram is  no  longer  than  the  established  time.  Each  teacher  has  210 
minutes  in  Regular  Activities  and  100  minutes  in  Special  Activities 
with  20  minutes  for  assembling  of  pupils,  a  total  of  330  minutes, 
which  is  the  established  time. 

The  two  periods  in  Special  Activities  should  be  departmentalized. 
Certain  teachers  should  give  both  periods  to  play  and  physical  train- 
ing and  other  teachers  should  give  both  periods  to  music,  drawing, 
science,  etc.  The  manual  training  teachers  and  the  public  librarian 
release  two  teachers  from  the  work  periods,  who  may  be  assigned 
play  and  physical  training.  Six  teachers  should  run  the  auditorium 
period  and  the  remaining  teacher  of  the  division  should  be  assigned 
to  play  and  physical  training.  The  only  extra  teachers  are  the  man- 
ual training  teachers.  If  there  are  a  few  teachers  who  cannot  do 
the  work  of  the  Special  Activities  successfully,  they  may  give  all 
of  this  time  to  Regular  School  Activities.  The  teachers  so  displaced 
from  Regular  Activities  may  give  all  of  their  time  to  physical  train- 
ing and  play,  music,  drawing,  science,  shop  work,  etc. 

About  half  of  the  teachers  will  have  an  extra  50-minute  period  In 
the  school  for  grading  papers,  planning  school  work,  looking  after  in- 
dividual needs  of  children  or  professional  study.  In  my  judgment  it 
would  be  well  if  all  teachers  did  their  supplementary  school  work  at 
the  school  rather  than  at  home.  Less  energy  will  be  required  to  do 
this  work  at  school  than  at  home,  and  the  public  will  have  a  better 
understanding  of  the  teacher's  work. 

4.     HOW  THE  NEW  PROGRAM  AT  PUBLIC  SCHOOL  89  OFFERS 

RICHER   OPPORTUNITIES   TO    ALL   CHILDREN   IN   A 

STUDY,  WORK  AND  PLAY  SCHOOL. 

Anything  added  to  the  academic  school  program  that  will  compel 
the  immediate  use  of  the  academic  work  will  help  put  the  children 
into  a  condition  favorable  for  teaching.  You  must  first  get  chil- 


14 


dren  into  a  condition  to  be  taught  before  you  can  succeed  in  teaching 
them.  The  auditorium,  play  and  special  work  of  the  school  represent 
as  far  as  possible  actual  life  conditions  for  the  direct  application  of 
the  academic  instruction  of  the  regular  school  hours. 

The  School  Auditorium. 

The  auditorium  work  supplements  and  motivates  the  school 
studies.  Recently  at  Public  School  89  I  saw  the  following  in  an  audi- 
torium period  conducted  by  the  sixth  grade  English  class.  The  chil- 
dren had  written  in  their  regular  class  room  exercises  compositions  on 
the  subject  of  "Table  Manners."  They  were  asked  to  write  in  a  form 
suitable  for  dramatization.  The  best  composition  was  selected  for 
dramatization.  A  half  dozen  children  represented  a  nurse,  a  maid, 
and  four  children  who  had  been  left  in  charge  of  the  nurse  while  the 
father  and  mother  were  in  Europe.  The  father  and  mother  were  due 
to  return  soon,  and  the  nurse  was  training  the  children  for  the  home- 
coming. A  dining  room  table  was  placed  upon  the  stage  and  it  was 
set  ready  for  dinner  with  dishes  from  the  cooking  room.  The  boy,  of 
course,  came  to  the  table  with  soiled  hands  and  had  to  be  sent  to  the 
lavatory.  One  of  the  children  attempted  to  drain  a  glass  by  throwing 
his  head  back  and  tipping  the  glass  over  his  face.  He  was  most 
severely  reprimanded.  In  a  similar  manner  the  proper  use  of  spoons, 
knives  and  forks;  the  handling  of  soup,  bread,  meats,  etc.;  the  masti- 
cation of  food;  proper  conversation  at  table;  all  were  illustrated  most 
thoroughly.  The  300  children  in  the  audience  were  held  spellbound. 
The  stage  is  very  low  and  the  children  in  the  audience  had  to  stand 
in  order  to  see,  but  there  was  not  the  slightest  confusion. 

There  could  be  no  question  that  this  exercise  given  by  children 
made  a  much  greater  impression  than  any  teacher  could  have  created 
by  lecturing  to  the  children  on  the  subject.  The  auditorium  period 
served  as  the  incentive  for  the  class  room  composition  exercises,  pro- 
vided a  need  for  public  speaking,  and  contributed  effective  instruction. 

Following  the  presentation  all  the  children  were  given  a  period 
of  freedom  for  talking  and  moving  about  the  room.  While  no  doubt 
much  of  the  conversation  was  irrelevant,  and  I  know  of  no  objection 
to  its  being  so,  yet  nearly  all  that  I  heard  was  inspired  by  the  lesson 
on  table  manners.  Here  the  auditorium  exercise  furnished  a  sub- 
ject for  conversation,  and  the  conversation  in  turn  reinforced  the  Im- 
pression made  by  the  exercise. 

Following  the  free  period  fifteen  minutes  were  given  to  chorua 
singing.  The  teaching  of  music  is  done  in  the  special  music  room. 
The  auditorium  hour  supplements  this  instruction  and  provides  the 
opportunity  to  create  and  enjoy  music.  It  will  not  be  many  years 
before  this  school  will  have  special  choruses,  glee  clubs,  quartettes,  an 
orchestra  and  a  band. 

Seven  teachers  with  their  respective  classes  use  the  auditorium  at 
one  time.  Teachers  are  assigned  to  auditorium  groups  so  that  each 
group  will  include  a  teacher  who  can  direct  the  music  and  a  teacher 
who  can  play  the  piano.  Eventually  each  of  the  auditorium  periods 

15 


will  be  run  by  six  teachers.  The  seventh  teacher  will  be  assigned  to 
the  playground.  The  manual  training  and  shop  teachers,  the  libra- 
rian and  persons  from  outside  the  school  can  use  the  auditorium. 
Each  of  the  six  auditorium  teachers  with  her  class  will  be  responsible 
for  a  twenty-minute  program  only  once  in  two  weeks.  The  class,  not 
the  teacher,  should  give  the  program.  The  six  auditorium  teachers 
select  one  of  their  number  as  leader  for  a  week,  month,  or  any  other 
time  division  that  they  choose.  The  auditorium  work  may  be  pre- 
sented in  a  great  variety  of  ways-— addresses,  papers,  stereopticon  lec- 
tures, motion  pictures,  laboratory  demonstrations,  etc. 

The  Value  of  the  Other  Special  Activities. 

I  believe  that  the  program  given  above  for  the  X  School  is 
planned  solely  with  a  view  to  providing  the  best  possible  facilities  for 
this  school  of  twenty-one  classes.  The  children  of  the  X  School  cannot 
use  the  regular  twenty-one  class  rooms  more  than  210  minutes,  if 
they  are  to  use  the  auditorium,  the  playground  and  the  special  rooms 
as  planned,  unless  they  are  given  a  longer  school  day.  This  would  be 
true  even  though  all  of  the  school  facilities  were  idle  half  of  the  time 
with  only  one  school  using  them.  I  do  not  know  of  any  reason  why 
the  class  room  work  supplemented  by  manual  training  in  regular 
manual  training  shops,  drawing  and  music  in  special  studios,  science 
in  special  laboratories  and  library  work  in  a  real  library,  with  the 
best  of  equipment  and  specially  trained  teachers  is  not  better  than 
trying  to  do  all  of  these  things  in  a  much  less  efficient  way  in  reg- 
ular class  rooms. 

Most  certainly  playgrounds,  gymnasiums  and  swimming  pools  are 
good  things  for  children  to  have.  I  believe  that  gardens,  work  shops, 
drawing  and  music  studios  are  good  things  for  children  to  have.  I 
believe  that  museums,  art  galleries  and  libraries  are  good  things  for 
children  to  use  systematically  and  regularly.  In  my  judgment  oppor- 
tunities for  religious  instruction,  private  teachers  of  music  and  assist- 
ing in  desirable  home  work  are  good  things  for  children,  and  this  new 
and  more  elastic  program  offers  a  greater  chance  for  taking  advan- 
tage of  them.  So  also  are  co-operative  classes  between  the  academic 
school  and  the  industrial  activities  of  the  school  business,  repair,  im- 
provement and  accounting  departments,  and  between  the  school  and 
industrial  activities  outside  the  school.  In  what  way  will  the  use  of 
these  facilities  handicap  a  child  in  his  efforts  to  secure  an  education? 

Anything  that  gives  the  child  a  chance  to  use  what  the  school  is 
trying  to  teach  him,  anything  that  creates  a  need  for  the  mastery  ol 
the  things  the  school  is  trying  to  teach,  should  be  a  help  to  the  teach- 
ing process.  We  often  hear  adults  say  that  if  they  had  their  school 
days  to  live  over  again,  they  would  improve  them  better  than  they  did. 
What  a  pity  that  when  we  had  a  chance  to  educate  ourselves  we  did 
not  want  to,  and  that  now  when  we  do  not  have  the  opportunity  we 
would  like  to  educate  ourselves.  What  brought  us  as  adults  to  a 
realization  of  the  value  of  an  education?  Is  it  not  the  fact  that  every 
day  we  are  disappointed  in  not  being  able  to  do  the  things  that  we 
might  do,  or  have  the  things  that  we  miight  have,  if  we  had  properly 

16 


trained  our  hands  and  our  brains?  It  is  the  bitter  disappointments  in 
life  that  make  us  appreciate  our  lost  opportunities.  If  our  children 
are  to  appreciate  their  school  opportunities  now  while  they  can  make 
use  of  them,  we  must  find  a  way  for  them  to  be  actually  disappointed 
now  because  they  do  not  have  the  things  that  the  school  can  teach.- 
Such  disappointments  will  create  a  desire  to  learn  what  the  school 
can  teach. 

In  place  of  telling  the  child  to  work  hard  on  his  arithmetic  and 
language  now  because  he  will  need  them  ten  years  later  when  he 
leaves  the  school  and  enters  the  real  life  of  industry  and  commerce, 
the  child  has  a  chance  to  apply  what  he  has  learned  of  arithmetic 
and  language  in  these  real  life  departments  of  the  school  immediately 
every  school  day.  The  community  life  of  the  school  and  the  com- 
munity life  of  the  neighborhood  automatically  create  real  needs  for 
mastering  the  academic  subjects  of  the  school. 

Good  teachers  should  be  able  to  do  better  teaching  in  worth-while 
subjects  under  such  a  program.  The  subjects  that  count  most  for  suc- 
cess in  life  will  be  constantly  and  automatically  motivated  every 
school  day.  Even  the  purely  cultural  subjects  are  motivated.  The 
direct  contact  with  the  automatic  processes  of  industry  reveals  the 
necessity  for  cultural  training  for  the  individual  in  industry  and  com- 
merce. 

Poor  teachers  should  do  better  teaching  with  such  a  school  pro- 
gram. However,  I  doubt  if  any  school  program  can  make  poor  teach- 
ing good.  This  elastic  program  of  work,  study  and  play  is  not  offered 
as  a  panacea  for  all  school  ills.  In  addition  to  a  superior  program 
there  must  be  good  management  in  order  to  secure  a  superior  school. 

5.   HOW  THE  NEW  PROGRAM  IS  FOUNDED  ON  A  SOUND 
ECONOMIC  BASIS. 

Unfortunately  the  program  described  requires  twenty-six  class 
rooms  for  twenty-one  classes  of  children  in  addition  to  the  auditorium, 
play  space,  library,  work  shops,  etc.  No  facility  during  the  school 
day  is  used  for  more  than  half  the  time  by  the  X  School.  Fortunately 
the  auditorium  need  be  large  enough  to  accommodate  only  one-third 
of  the  X  School.  The  same  is  true  of  the  play  space  and  the  special 
work  facilities.  There  is  a  great  economy  in  using  the  facilities 
named  for  three  periods  by  alternate  groups  each  representing  one- 
third  of  the  school.  But  a  higher  first  cost  and  a  greater  operation 
and  maintenance  cost  would  be  justifiable  in  all  of  these  facilities,  in- 
cluding the  regular  class  rooms,  if  they  could  be  used  longer  and 
accommodate  more  children. 

Since  the  X  School  can  use  any  of  these  facilities  only  half  of  the 
time,  what  objection  can  there  be,  to  another  school  of  twenty-one 
classes  using  the  facilities  when  the  X  School  cannot  use  them?  Fol- 
lowing is  a  program  for  such  a  duplicate  school,  designated  Y: 

The  Y  School  has  the  same  time  as  the  X  School,  for  both  pupils 
and  teachers.  Neither  school  could  use  any  facility  any  more  if  the 
other  school  were  not  there,  but  both  schools  have  better  facilities 

17 


Y  SCHOOL 


Regular 
Activities 

Special   Activities 

School 
Hours 

Academic 
Instruction 

General 
Exercises 

Play  and  Phys. 
Training 

Special 
Work 

8:30-  9:20 

Div.   2 

Div.  3 

Div.   1 

9:20-10:10 

Div.   3 

Div.   2 

Div.  1 

10:10-11:00 

Arithmetic 
Divs.    1,   2,   3 

31:00-12:00 

Language 
Divs.  1,  2,  3 

12:00-  1:00 

Entire   School   at  Luncheon 

1:00-   1:50 

Div.   1 

Div.   3 

Div.    2 

1:50-  2:40 

Reading 
Divs.   1,   2,   3 

2:40-  3:30 

History   &  Geo. 
Divs.   1,   2.   3 

3:30-  4:30 

Div.    1 

every  hour  of  the  day  because  the  other  school  is  there.  Forty-two 
classes  of  children  are  thus  accommodated  in  twenty-six  class  rooms. 
In  place  of  building  a  sixteen-room  additional  school  with  its  initial 
cost  of  site  and  construction,  and  its  annual  cost  of  janitor  service,  heat- 
ing, maintenance,  etc.,  an  equivalent  expenditure  can  be  made  for  the 
permanent  improvement  and  increased  operating  cost  of  the  twenty- 
six  room  school. 

Richer  Opportunities  for  Children. 

While  this  program  makes  two  schools  in  one  possible,  primarily 
it  is  planned  to  provide  a  longer  school  day,  i.  e.,  six  hours  in  place 
of  five,  and  greater  facilities  for  each  child  during  each  of  the  six 
hours.  Twenty-six  class  rooms  are  used  to  accommodate  one  school  of 
twenty-one  classes.  In  addition  there  must  be  an  auditorium,  play- 
ground, gymnasium,  manual  training  shops  and  domestic  science 
laboratories,  drawing  and  music  studios,  science  laboratories  and 
branch  of  the  public  library.  It  is  evident  that  the  first  thought  haa 
not  been  economy  of  school  expenditure,  but  economy  of  the  resources 
of  the  child. 

One  hundred  minutes'  daily  play  is  given  to  the  primary  grades, 
for  play  takes  the  place  of  work  for  small  children.  This  play  is 
gradually  transformed  into  work,  fifty  minutes'  work  and  fifty  min- 
utes' play  in  intermediate  grades,  and  one  hundred  minutes'  work  in 
the  grammar  grades,  as  the  older  children  use  their  after-school 
leisure  time  for  play.  Thus  the  play  impulse  is  transformed  into  a 
work  impulse.  Productive  activities  are  substituted  for  non-productive 
activities.  Work  is  made  constructive  play. 

Vocational  training  in  the  elementary  schools  does  not  mean 
teaching  children  how  to  use  a  few  tools.  Only  a  relatively  few  per- 
sons can  become  plumbers,  electricians,  sheet  metal  workers,  machin- 


18 


ists  or  carpenters,  and  they  cannot  learn  these  trades  at  twelve  or 
thirteen  years  of  age.  The  best  type  of  vocational  training  in  the 
elementary  school  will  be  provided,  not  by  the  addition  of  a  speci.nl 
vocational  school  department  for  a  few  children,  but  by  enlarging  the 
function  of  the  entire  elementary  school  from  the  kindergarten 
through  the  high  school,  to  meet  changed  industrial  and  social  con- 
ditions. 

The  school  must  learn  how  to  do  its  part  in  the  training  of  all 
types  and  classes  of  children  in  the  Art  of  Right  Living  from  the 
standpoint  of  the  producer  as  well  as  of  the  consumer.  This  may  seem 
to  be  an  idealistic,  impractical  program  for  an  ordinary  school,  but 
I  believe  it  to  be  practical  and  that  it  can  be  realized  in  all  ordinary 
schools. 

Financing  the  Ideal  School  Requires  Merely  the  Ordinary  Economic 
Principles  of  All  Public  Service. 

At  first  thought  it  may  seem  that  the  problem  of  financing  such 
enlarged  school  opportunities  will  be  a  serious  one,  but  the  facts  are 
that  to  finance  an  ideal  school  is  not  a  problem.  The  great  problem 
is  to  know  what  kind  of  school  will  meet  the  children's  needs  and 
how  to  run  such  a  school  when  you  have  secured  it.  You  can  afford 
any  kind  of  school  desired,  if  ordinary  economic  public  service  prin- 
ciples are  applied  to  public  school  management. 

The  first  principle  in  turning  waste  into  profit  in  school  manage- 
ment is  to  use  every  facility  all  the  time  for  all  the  people.  The 
class  rooms,  the  auditorium,  the  playground,  the  gymnasium,  the 
swimming  pool,  the  work  shops,  the  studios,  the  museums,  and  the 
libraries  should  be  in  constant  use  all  day  long  by  all  children  alter- 
nately, and  out  of  school  hours-  they  should  be  used  by  adults. 

I  do  not  know  any  good  reason  why  all  children  should  be  on  the 
playground  at  the  same  time.  Yet  that  has  been  the  established 
custom.  Why  should  we  purchase  at  public  expense  a  private  space 
of  ground  for  each  child  to  play  in  as  his  exclusive  personal  posses- 
sion? If  a  school  enrolls  2,400  children  and  has  one  acre  for  a  play- 
ground, each  child  has  as  his  share  only  twenty  square  feet  if  all 
children  play  at  once.  But  if  the  children  play  in  separate  groups  of 
400  at  different  times  during  the  day,  then  each  child  would  have  as 
his  share  of  the  playground  one  hundred  and  twenty  square  feet  in 
which  to  play.  I  doubt  if  any  city  can  provide  ample  play  facilities 
for  all  its  children  if  they  all  play  at  the  same  time. 

School  practice  still  clings  to  the  idea  that  all  persons  in  school 
want  to  do  the  same  thing  at  the  same  time.  The  argument  is  made 
that  of  the  twenty-four  hours  of  the  day  and  the  365  days  of  the  year 
only  certain  hours  and  certain  days  can  be  used  for  certain  things 
and  that  each  child  must  have  his  own  private  school  desk,  auditorium 
seat,  play  space,  etc.,  for  his  exclusive  use.  Tradition  says  that  all 
school  children  must  be  in  the  auditorium  for  opening  exercises  from 
9:00  to  9:15;  in  class  rooms  from  9:15  to  12:00  and  from  1:00  to  3:00; 
in  playground  and  library  from  3:00  to  5:00.  It  would  not  do  at  all 

19 


to  have  a  child  in  a  class  room  from  3:00  to  3:30,  in  a  library  from 
2:00  to  3:00,  in  a  playground  from  10:00  to  11:00,  or  in  an  auditorium 
from  1:00  to  2:00. 

The  facts  are  that  there  are  many  things  in  school  and  out  of 
school  that  all  people  do  not  want  to  do  at  the  same  time,  or  can  just 
as  well  do  at  different  times. 

PARKS. 

What  would  you  think  of  a  city  park  system  that  limited  the  use 
of  the  parks  to  3:00  to  5:00  o'clock  five  days  a  week  for  only  200  days 
of  the  365  days  of  the  year,  and  tried  to  have  everybody  use  the  parks 
daily?  With  all  the  people  in  the  parks  at  one  time  each  person 
would  have  as  his  share  of  the  park  a  space  equal  to  the  park  area 
divided  by  the  total  number  of  persons  served.  A  very  foolish  park 
system,  you  say.  All  people  do  not  want  to  use  the  parks  at  the  same 
time  and  there  is  hardly  any  time  when  no  one  wants  to  use  the 
parks. 

RAILWAYS,    HOTELS,    ETC. 

The  modern  city  is  largely  the  result  of  the  application  of  the 
principle  of  the  common  use  of  public  facilities  that  we  need  for  per- 
sonal use  only  part  of  the  time.  We  are  willing  that  other  people 
use  public  conveniences  when  we  cannot  use  them.  How  many  street 
cars  would  be  required  and  what  sort  of  cars  and  service  could  we 
afford,  if  each  citizen  had  to  have  his  own  private  street  car  seat  for 
his  own  exclusive  use?  How  many  limited  trains  and  Lusitanias 
would  be  required  and  what  sort  of  trains  and  steamboats  could  we 
afford  if  each  person  had  to  have  his  own  private  seat  in  a  train  and 
state  room  in  a  boat  for  his  own  perpetual  exclusive  use?  Private, 
exclusive  use  of  transportation  facilities  would  turn  us  back  to  the 
"one-horse  shay"  and  the  fishing  smack.  How  many  hotel  rooms, 
dining  tables,  etc.,  would  be  required  and  of  what  sort  would  they  be 
if  each  visitor  to  New  York  during  the  year  had  to  have  reserved 
throughout  the  year  his  own  private  bedroom  and  dining  table  for  his 
own  exclusive,  limited  use?  Yet  the  hotel  room  used  only  four  days 
during  the  year  would  be  in  use  longer  than  the  average  school  audi- 
torium is  used  during  the  year. 

PUBLIC   LIBRARIES   AND   MUSEUMS. 

Modern  public  conveniences  are  made  possible  only  by  their 
common  use,  and  the  fact  that  we  do  not  all  want  to  use  the  same 
public  convenience  at  the  same  moment.  We  are  willing  to  have  some 
one  else  use  our  public  library,  look  at  our  pictures  in  our  public 
museum,  walk  in  our  public  park,  sleep  in  our  Pullman  berth  or  in  our 
hotel  bedroom,  or  travel  on  our  steamboat,  when  we  are  otherwise 
engaged. 

Reorganization  of  Public  Schools  an  Economic  Necessity. 

The  great  masses  of  our  children  in  our  cities  can  never  have 
ample  play  spaces,  suitable  auditoriums,  gymnasiums  and  swimming 

20 


pools,  work  shops,  libraries,  museums,  or  even  ordinary  school  rooms 
for  study  and  recitation,  if  all  children  at  the  same  time  must  be 
using  each  of  these  facilities  separately. 

New  York  City  has  averaged  $7,000,000.00  a  year  for  school  build- 
ings and  sites  during  the  past  fifteen  years,  and  even  with  that  ex- 
penditure has  not  been  able  to  provide  enough  class  rooms  for  each 
school  child  to  have  the  private  exclusive  possession  of  a  school  seat, 
to  say  nothing  of  providing  additional  facilities. 

Document  No.  8,  1914,  contains  requests  of  your  Board  of  Super- 
intendents for  the  erection  of  new  buildings  costing  $30,000,000.00  to 
$40,000,000.00  to  provide  for  present  overcrowded  conditions  in  your 
schools.  The  $105,000,000.00  spent  during  the  past  fifteen  years  should 
have  been  one-third  greater  in  order  to  provide  an  exclusive  desk  in 
a  class  room  for  each  of  your  750,000  school  children.  It  seems  to  be 
absolutely  necessary  that  some  other  method  be  tried  in  order  to 
catch  up,  i.  e.,  to  secure  a  sufficient  number  of  ordinary  school  rooms. 

Fortunately  the  per  capita  cost  for  accommodations  in  audi- 
torium, playgrounds,  play  rooms  and  gymnasiums  is  less  than  that 
for  regular  class  rooms.  The  regular  class  room  is  the  most  expensive 
unit  in  a  school.  Many  persons  in  New  York  are  of  the  opinion  that 
ample  playground  space  is  impossible  in  New  York  City  because  of 
the  high  land  values.  Class  room  space  costs  approximately  $200  per 
pupil.  Forty  square  feet  of  play  space  is  sufficient  for  each  pupil  and 
can  be  purchased  at  five  dollars  per  square  foot  with  the  $200  pupil 
class  room  unit  cost  for  which  it  is  substituted.  The  class  room  puptl 
unit  cost  averages  $200  for  the  entire  city,  but  land  values  do  not 
average  five  dollars  per  square  foot.  Roof  playgrounds  cost  only  one 
dollar  and  fifty  cents  per  square  foot.  Besides  there  is  a  great  amount 
of  public  play  space  now  available,  as  well  as  many  gymnasiums, 
play  rooms,  play  roofs  and  auditoriums. 

Ample  accommodations  may,  therefore,  be  provided  in  all  facili- 
ties, if  they  are  in  use  constantly,  by  alternating  groups,  at  less  cost 
than  regular  class  rooms  alone  may  be  provided  on  the  basis  of  the 
exclusive,  private  possession  of  a  desk  and  one-fortieth  of  a  class  room 
by  each  pupil. 

A  work,  study  and  play  school  is  extravagant  only  in  the  oppor- 
tunities offered  children. 

6.      A  CLEARING  HOUSE  FOB  CHILDREN'S  ACTIVITIES. 

All  persons  do  not  wish  to  send  their  children  to  school  at  the 
same  hour  in  the  morning.  Some  prefer  an  early  hour,  like  8:30, 
while  others  prefer  a  later  hour,  '.ike  9:00  or  9>:30.  Since  the  X  and  Y 
schools  are  exact  duplicates,  any  family  may  choose  either  the  early 
hour  school  or  the  late  hour  school.  There  are  always  enough  fami- 
lies without  a  decided  preference  to  balance  the  attendance  at  the  two 
schools. 

All  churches  and  many  settlement  houses  will  be  glad  to  provide 
and  pay  for  religious  instruction  and  social  work  during  the  week 
days  in  their  respective  churches  and  houses  with  special  teachers  in 

21 


charge,  if  they  can  secure  their  children  regularly  in  groups  during 
the  entire  day  and  each  day  of  the  week.  Many  mothers  would  like 
their  daughters  to  give  an  hour  or  two  daily  to  private  music  work, 
provided  their  children  could  go  on  with  their  class  in  the  regular 
subjects  and  substitute  the  music  for  a  part  of  the  special  school 
work.  Many  private  music  teachers  would  be  glad  to  meet  their  stu- 
dents during  school  hours.  Many  homes  would  be  able  to  use  the  time 
of  children  profitably  for  the  home  and  the  children>  if  they  could 
secure  their  respective  children  at  the  right  time.  But  the  estab- 
lished school  takes  all  of  the  children  at  one  time  just  early  enough 
and  holds  all  of  the  children  just  late  enough  to  prevent  any  other 
child  welfare  agency  doing  very  much  for  them.  Also  the  established 
school  program  requires  the  same  effort  from  all  children  alike  regard- 
less of  their  outside  duties. 

The  X  and  Y  programs  described  permit  children  to  leave  the 
school  during  the  auditorium,  play  and  special  work  periods  for  duties 
elsewhere  that  are  equivalent  to  the  school  work  so  displaced.  In 
many  instances  the  work  substituted  for  the  school  activities  is  much 
more  profitable  for  the  particular  children  interested.  I  am  aware 
that  this  privilege  m&y  be  abused.  In  your  worst  tenement  districts 
there  might  be  a  disposition  to  have  the  children  come  home  for 
sweat-shop  work.  The  school,  not  the  parents,  must  determine  whether 
the  child  is  to  be  excused.  There  is  no  good  reason  why  all  children 
should  be  permitted  a  short  school  day  if  it  is  not  for  their  personal 
good.  We  are  not  now  concerned  with  the  traditional  school  that 
forces  all  persons  to  do  the  same  thing,  in  the  same  way  and  at  the 
same  time.  The  new  school  is  flexible  and  may  be  adapted  to  differ- 
ent types  of  communities  and  to  the  several  individuals  in  a  single 
school.  The  children  may  have  a  long  or  a  short  day,  early  or  late, 
academic  work  emphasized  or  shop  work  emphasized,  all  of  their  time 
in  school  or,  if  it  is  to  the  advantage  of  the  child,  he  may  have  part 
of  the  school  time  out  of  school.  Not  man}  »i.;h<K.ls  should  be  exactly 
alike.  The  standards  for  each  school  should  be  those  demanded  by  the 
needs  of  the  individual  children  attending  that  particular  school. 

An  Elastic  Program. 

The  purpose  is  to  establish  the  framework  of  a  school  program 
that  will  be  so  elastic  that  any  desirable  combination  may  be  made 
for  both  pupils  and  teachers.  Forty-five,  sixty,  ninety  minutes,  or  any 
other  time  may  be  used  in  place  of  fifty  minute  school  periods.  With 
a  sixty  minute  school  period  the  school  day  would  be  from  8:30  to 
4:30.  Two  hundred  and  forty  minutes  of  actual  regular  class  room 
work  is  provided  and  a  proportionate  increase  in  the  time  given  to 
auditorium,  play  and  special  work.  The  school  is  enabled  to  occupy 
as  much  or  as  little  of  the  child's  time  as  is  found  to  be  desirable. 
With  the  combination  of  work,  play  and  study,  the  school  can  elimi- 
nate the  destructive  street  and  alley  life  and  substitute  therefor  con- 
structive, wholesome  activities. 

Any  desired  arrangement  of  auditorium,  play  and  special  work 
may  be  made.  The  following  illustrates  a  type  of  school  program 

22 


planned  for  a  school  with  limited  auditorium  and  play  facilities  and 
many  children  at  churches  for  religious  instruction: 

X   SCHOOL— MODIFIED   PROGRAM. 

24  classes,  all  grades,  1  to  8   divided  into  four  divisions  for  special 
activities. 


Regular 

Activities 

Special  Activities 

School 
Hours 

Academic 
24  Classes 

Auditorium 

Play 

Special    Work    and 
Church  —  4     Spe- 
cial    Rooms,     Li- 
brary. 

8:30-  9:15 

Arithmetic 
Divs.  1,  2,  3,  4 

9:15-10:00 

Language 
Divs.  1,  2,  3,  4 

10:00-10:45 

Div.  1 

Div.  3 

Divs.    2    and    4 

10:45-11:30 

Div.   3 

Div.  1 

Divs.    2    and    4 

11:30-12:30 

24  Classes  X  School  at  Luncheon 

12:30-  1:30 

Reading 
Divs.   1.  2,  3,  4 

1:30-  2:15 

History 
Divs.   1,   2,   3,  4 

2:15-  3:00 

Geography 
Divs.  1,  2,  3,  4 

3:00-  3:45 

Div.  2 

Div.  4 

Divs.    1    and    3 

3:45-  4:30 

Div.   4 

Div.  2 

Divs.    1    and    3 

Summary  of  Time  Schedule. 

PUPILS'   TIME,  MINUTES   PER  WEEK. 
All  pupils  have  forty  per  cent,  more  time  in  school 


School 
Department 

Division    1 

Division  2 

Division   3   and   4 

X 

School 

New    York 
Minimum 

X 

School 

New  York 
Minimum 

840 
75 
150 
250 

1315 

1500 

X 

school 

New  York 
Minimum 

Academic   
Auditorium    .  .  . 
Play     

1200 
225 
225 
450 

840 
75 
80 
280 

1200 
225 
225 
450 

1200 
225 
450 
225 

Grade  1 
880 
75 
300 
Inc 
Acad 

Grade  2 
1090 
75 
180 
Juded 
emic  T 

Work     

Total 

2100 
2100 

1275 
1500 

2100 
2100 

2100 
2100 

1255 
1200 

1345 
1500 

Full     Time  

I  do  not  wish  to  urge  the  adoption  of  any  set  form  or  design  of 
program.  The  variety  of  ways  in  which  greater  opportunities  for 
children  may  be  secured  through  a  work,  study  and  play  school  is  one 
of  its  chief  recommendations.  We  need  elasticity  and  adaptability  in 
our  school  program  and  curriculum,  not  rigidity.  The  great  problem 
is  to  learn  what  kind  of  a  school  our  children  should  have,  and  we 
should  always  be  learning. 


Special  Programs  for  Special  Children. 

Children  who  are  not  very  strong  physically  may  spend  the  entire 
day  at  school  in  play,  special  work,  and  any  other  activities  that  may 
help  them  to  become  well.  A  few  cots  and  blankets  should  be  placed 
in  each  school  so  that  the  children  who  need  it  may  sleep  out  of 
doors  in  protected  places  during  the  school  hours  from  which  they 
may  be  excused.  There  is  no  good  reason  why  children  should  not  be 
sent  to  school  as  they  would  be  sent  to  a  sanitarium,  to  be  developed 
and  made  well  physically  as  well  as  developed  mentally. 

A  large  part  of  the  following  evils  may  be  eliminated:  keeping 
of  children  after  school  hours  for  make-up  work,  with  the  great  waste 
of  energy  for  both  pupil  and  teacher;  excessive  home  study;  flunking 
pupils,  which  usually  graduates  them  to  the  sidewalk.  A  boy  in  the 
eighth  grade  who  is  failing  in  percentage  because  he  did  not  get  the 
common  and  decimal  fractions  in  the  fifth  or  sixth  grade  may  go  on 
with  his  class  in  percentage  in  the  X  School.  But  when  his  class 
goes  to  the  auditorium,  play  or  special  work,  he  may  be  transferred  to 
a  fifth  or  sixth  grade  class  in  arithmetic  in  the  Y  School.  There  is 
no  good  reason  why  all  children  should  have  exactly  the  same  pro- 
gram either  in  school  or  in  out  of  school  activities.  As  far  as  possi- 
ble, each  child  should  have  what  he  personally  needs.  If  any  boy 
needs  one,  two,  three  or  four  hours  each  day  in  arithmetic,  English  or 
physical  training,  he  should  be  accommodated. 

The  regulation  of  this  flexible  program  both  in  the  school  and  out 
of  the  school  is  a  very  simple  matter  and  soon  becomes  almost  auto- 
matic. In  fact,  most  of  the  need  for  exacting  regulation  and  discipline 
in  school  disappears  when  the  school  ceases  to  be  so  exacting  and 
attempts  to  serve  its  patrons  in  the  way  they  want  to  be  served. 

All  child  welfare  agencies  that  can  meet  the  needs  of  the  children 
as  well  as  or  better  than  the  school  should  have  the  opportunity  to 
get  the  children  at  any  hour  of  the  day  and  every  day  so  that  they 
may  work  at  their  maximum  efficiency.  The  school  should  get  out  of 
the  way  of  the  other  child  welfare  agencies  and  by  co-operation  with 
them  serve  as  a  sort  of  CLEARING  HOUSE  FOR  CHILDREN'S 
ACTIVITIES. 

When  every  class  room,  laboratory,  shop,  studio,  playground,  gym- 
nasium, swimming  pool,  auditorium,  library,  museum,  church,  social 
settlement  and  home  can  be  working  at  maximum  efficiency  all  of  the 
time,  providing  wholesome  activities  for  children,  then  we  may  hope 
to  teach  all  children  the  ART  OF  RIGHT  LIVING. 

Overcoming  Inertia. 

The  only  obstacles  to  securing  such  a  co-operation  of  all  child 
welfare  agencies  are  a  lack  of  comprehension  of  the  changed  indus- 
trial and  social  conditions  in  modern  cities,  and  the  failure  to  under- 
stand that  puolic  service  institutions  cannot  "be  the  private,  exclusive 
possessions  of  individuals, 

Individual  families  can  no  longer  do  for  their  respective  children 
what  the  family  formerly  did  for  its  children.  The  public  must 

24 


supplement  the  efforts  of  the  home  and  do  for  the  children  the  things 
that  the  home  cannot  do.  But  the  public  must  perform  its  work 
through  public  service  institutions,  and  not  in  the  private,  individual, 
exclusive  way  of  the  family. 

The  public  provides  at  public  expense  only  those  facilities  that 
we  can  use  in  common  and  cannot  afford  to  provide  for  our  own( 
private,  exclusive  possession,  because  of  the  limited  use  that  we  are 
able  to  make  of  them.  The  only  reason  why  the  public,  that  is  our- 
selves collectively,  can  afford  to  provide  things  for  each  of  us  indi- 
vidually that  we  cannot  provide  for  ourselves  privately  is  that  col- 
lectively we  secure  a  multiple  use  of  the  facilities.  If  we  eliminate 
the  multiple  use,  we  cannot  afford  collectively  anything  that  we  cannot 
afford  privately.  We  can  provide  for  our  private  exclusive  use  a 
bedroom  in  our  home  because  we  use  it  eight  to  ten  hours  almost 
every  night  in  the  year.  When  we  travel,  however,  we  must  use  bed- 
rooms in  common  with  other  travelers.  We  would  not  think  for  a 
moment  of  sub-letting  our  home  bedroom  to  some  one  else  when  we 
cannot  use  it,  but  we  expect  our  hotel  bedroom  to  be  sub-let  when  we 
cannot  use  it. 

A  few  very  rich  persons  may  be  able  to  afford  hotel  bedrooms 
reserved  perpetually  for  their  private,  exclusive  use,  even  though  they 
seldom  use  them.  The  people  collectively  provided  for  Louis  XIV  the 
magnificent  palace  and  park  at  Versailles.  Without  the  multiple  use 
of  this  property  provided  by  the  people  collectively  it  was  reserved 
for  the  exclusive  enjoyment  of  one  of  their  number.  But  the  people 
all  wished  to  share  in  this  collective  possession  and  through  the 
French  Revolution  took  possession  of  such  private  estates  for  the 
common  use. 

Public  lighting  systems,  water-works,  telephones,  transportation 
systems,  etc.,  are  all  an  outgrowth  of  community  effort  for  the  com- 
mon good.  This  change  in  the  attitude  of  mind  of  the  masses  is  the 
thing  that  has  made  possible  modern  commercial,  industrial  and 
social  progress.  We  have  constantly  before  us  an  enlargement  of  the 
principle  of  multiple  service  of  public  facilities.  The  idea  is  that 
increasing  the  number  of  persons  using  any  public  facility  either 
under  public  or  private  ownership  betters  the  service  for  all  provided 
the  load  can  be  uniformly  distributed  during  operating  hours.  The 
problem  with  a  public  lighting  or  transportation  service  is  to  elimi- 
nate peak  loads  as  far  as  possible. 

Peak  Loads  in  the  Public  Schools. 

The  public  school  as  it  is  now  operated  is  not  a  public  service 
institution  of  this  type.  In  the  school  every  administrative  effort  is 
made  to  increase  peak  loads  and  prevent  the  equalization  of  the  load 
on  all  departments  during  operating  hours.  The  so-called  public  school 
in  many  respects  is  the  old  time  private  school  now  maintained  at 
public  expense.  Each  child  must  have  his  own  private  desk,  etc.,  for 
exclusive  personal  use,  even  though  the  combined  use  of  all  the  school 
facilities  will  not  total  two  and  one-half  hours  a  day  for  each  of  the 

25 


365  days  of  the  year.  The  use  of  the  auditorium  will  not  average 
more  than  ten  minutes  each  day  of  the  year  and  the  playgrounds 
barely  an  hour  each  day  of  the  year. 

The  result  of  such  a  system  is  that  many  children  are  forced  to 
attend  school  in  basements  and  cellars;  a  large  per  cent,  are  in  over- 
crowded, poorly  ventilated  and  lighted  school  rooms;  and  many  of 
those  who  are  in  fine  buildings  are  in  greatly  overcrowded  rooms.  A 
favored  few  are  in  fine  buildings  without  overcrowding,  but  they  do 
not  have  the  best  use  of  their  privately  possessed  facilities  because 
the  necessary  operation  charge  under  the  conditions  is  prohibitive. 
These  favored  few  in  the  fine  schools  without  overcrowding  are  occu- 
pied in  the  wasteful,  private,  exclusive  use  of  the  facilities  of  the 
school  for  only  two  and  one-half  hours  a  day.  The  church,  the  settle- 
ment house,  the  Sunday  school,  the  library  and  the  public  playground 
do  not  occupy  the  time  of  all  the  children,  on  the  average,  ten  minutes 
each  day  for  365  days  during  the  year,  largely  because  of  the  rigid 
school  program.  While  all  of  the  child  welfare  agencies  outside  the 
home  occupy  the  time  of  the  children  for  barely  two  and  one-half 
hours  a  day,  the  street  and  the  alley  have  at  least  five  hours  a  day. 
The  street  offers  the  major  courses  and  the  school  the  minor  courses. 
The  street  is  a  most  efficient  school  for  educating  the  children  in  the 
wrong  direction. 

The  private  exclusive  feature  of  the  use  of  public  school  facilities 
has  meant  and  will  continue  to  mean  that  all  of  the  people  collec- 
tively can  provide  suitable  school  facilities  for  only  a  part  of  their 
number. 

But  the  average  city  wants  to  provide  the  best  school  facilities, 
not  for  study  alone  but  for  work  and  play  as  well,  for  all  the  children 
To  succeed  we  must  find  a  way  to  let  the  public  use  the  public  school 
institution  in  a  public  service  way.  More  than  one  child  must  be 
able  to  use  each  facility  during  the  school  day  and  adults  must  be 
permitted  to  use  them  at  night. 

7.     VOCATIONAL  TRAINING. 

Vocational  training  in  the  Elementary  School  means  to  me  effi- 
ciency in  all  present  school  departments  for  all  children  from  the 
kindergarten  through  the  high  school. 

In  Public  School  89  we  hope  to  provide  better  facilities  for  all 
the  children  in  all  of  the  school  subjects.  The  academic  and  cultural 
studies  will  be  emphasized  as  they  have  never  been  emphasized  before. 
There  is  no  thought  of  adding  a  vocational  training  department,  but 
vocational  training  opportunities. 

The  additional  opportunities  in  vocational  training  will  be  secured 
through  an  extension  of  your  regular  manual  training  departments. 
At  present  with  only  80  minutes  per  week  in  manual  training  and  a 
new  set  of  pupils  every  period  and  every  day  of  the  week,  the  criti- 
cism of  manual  training  is  only  a  criticism  of  the  conditions  under 
which  your  manual  training  is  being  done.  If  you  will  provide  bet- 
ter conditions  for  manual  training  and  domestic  science  and  art, 

26 


your  regular  established  departments  will  expand  and  adapt  their 
work  to  suit  the  vocational  training  needs  of  the  children  better  than 
any  separate  and  competing  department  will  meet  them. 

I  believe  there  is  a  place  for  the  special  industrial  training  school, 
but  it  should  be  a  technical  school  for  older  students.  You  cannot 
make  plumbers,  carpenters  or  machinists  of  boys  twelve  and  thirteen 
years  of  age.  The  minimum  apprenticeship  age  for  most  trades  is 
sixteen  years.  A  large  per  cent,  of  the  children  who  drop  out  of 
school  do  not  have  to  go  to  work  and  would  be  much  better  off  in 
school  until  they  are  sixteen.  A  work,  study  and  play  elementary 
school  will  keep  them  in  school  until  they  are  sixteen.  The  most 
effective  means  of  keeping  children  in  school  is  to  provide  real  work 
corresponding  to  life  experience  along  with  school  instruction  so  that 
they  may  learn  why  they  should  remain  in  school. 

The  Child  is  a  Natural  Scientist. 

STuch  life  experience  should  begin  for  all  children  in  the  primary 
grades  and  continue  throughout  the  entire  school  course.  The  child 
is  a  natural  scientist.  He  is  always  observing,  collecting  and  classify- 
ing. It  is  much  easier  to  keep  good  impulses  alive  by  constant  exer- 
cise than  it  is  to  awaken  them  after  they  have  died  out  through 
inactivity  and  in  their  place  competing  interests  have  developed 
through  several  years'  loafing  in  the  street. 

A  father  purchased  a  double  cylinder  steam  engine  as  a  Christmas 
present  for  his  ten-year-old  son.  They  fired  it  up  together.  Soon  the 
boy  remarked,  "Daddy,  here  is  a  first-class  lever."  The  father  was 
surprised  to  learn  that  the  lad  knew  well  the  three  classes  of  levers 
and  that  he  was  studying  elementary  science  at  school.  The  same 
engine  was  later  handed  to  three  seventeen-year-old  boys  with  the  re- 
quest that  they  point  out  the  levers.  These  boys  had  just  completed 
four  months  of  the  high  school  physics  course  covering  the  subject 
of  mechanics.  But  it  was  their  first  science  work  and  they  were 
engaged  in  the  struggle  of  awakening  lost  interests.  They  looked  the 
engine  over  from  top  to  bottom,  front  to  rear  and  side  to  side,  handed 
it  back  and  were  unanimous  in  the  opinion  that  there  wasn't  any  lever 
there. 

"The  work  of  shop,  kitchen,  sewing  room,  accounting  room  and 
garden  must  be  thoroughly  intellectualized.  The  pupil  workers  must 
be  brought  to  see  in  connection  with  every  other  factor  and  process  of 
the  work  the  mathematics  involved,  the  science,  the  drawing  and 
design  and  the  economic  relations.  Technical  information  is  for  guid- 
ance. It  is  best  learned  during  the  process  of  guidance  of  actual 
work.  It  is  learned  for  purposes  of  application.  Only  thus  can  mathe- 
matics, science,  drawing  and  design  be  rightly  known  or  seen  in  right 
relations.  This  learning  in  connection  with  application  does  not  pre- 
clude discussion;  it  lays  the  only  secure  foundation  for  intelligent 
discussion  and  for  the  intelligent  generalization  of  principles  involved. 
Only  out  of  concrete  situations  can  one  ever  arrive  at  a  generalization 
that  has  reality." 

27 


"Speaking  generally,  it  can  be  said  that  we  find  the  concrete 
practical  activities  over  on  the  one  hand  very  largely  unillumined  with 
mathematics,  science  and  design;  and  on  the  other  hand  we  find  this 
same  science,  mathematics  and  design  given  without  concrete  founda- 
tion or  application.  Two  things  that  belong  together  are  found 
divorced  from  each  other.  Neither  can  be  educationally  effective  in 
any  high  degree  until  they  are  brought  together." 

Expensive  Special  Training  for  Older  Children  is  Economically 
Futile  While  the  Impulses  and  Interests  of  Younger  Children 
Are  Being  Lost  and  Wasted. 

We  must  spend  our  money  at  the  bottom  and  at  the  middle  of 
our  school  courses  as  well  as  at  the  top.  Providing  expensive  schools 
for  older  children  to  reawaken  lost  impulses  and  eradicate  acquired 
vicious  interests  is  like  trying  to  keep  back  the  ocean  tide  with  a 
broom.  No  amount  of  money  spent  for  Vocational  Schools  or  any 
other  kind  of  school,  at  the  top,  will  ever  repair  the  damage  done  to 
the  children  forced  to  attend  school  in  cellars,  basements,  assembly 
rooms  and  overcrowded  class  rooms  or  atone  for  the  waste  of  their 
childhood  in  the  street. 

At  sixteen,  children  who  leave  the  school  should  have  had  experi- 
ence in  various  industrial  activities  and  in  the  sciences  and  arts  so 
that  they  may  know  what  they  do  not  like  as  well  as  what  they  do 
like.  Unquestionably  the  school  should  do  what  it  can  for  the  unfor- 
tunate few  who  must  leave  school  to  go  to  work  at  fourteen.  The  best 
thing  that  can  be  done  for  such  children  is  to  prevent  their  leaving 
the  school  by  using  as  far  as  possible  continuation  and  co-operative 
courses. 

Two  Recommendations. 

These  needs  can  be  met  at  Public  School  89  by  doing  the  fol- 
lowing: 

First — Permit  the  part  time  manual  training  and  domestic  sci- 
ence teachers  to  give  all  of  their  time  to  this  school  and  give  all  sixth, 
seventh  and  eighth  grade  children  manual  training  and  domestic 
science  100  minutes  every  day  for  one-third  of  the  school  year.  While 
one-third  of  the  students  are  in  manual  training  and  domestic  science 
classes  one-third  should  be  in  elementary  science  and  one-third  in 
drawing  and  music.  The  only  increase  in  the  cost  of  instruction  is 
the  placing  of  the  manual  training  and  domestic  science  teachers  on 
duty  in  the  one  school  full  time,  in  place  of  half  time. 

Second — The  regular  manual  training  shop  work  should  be  sup- 
plemented by  co-operative  courses  between  the  school  manual  training 
shop  and  the  workmen  employed  on  school  repair  and  construction 
work.  The  school  repair  and  construction  work  should  be  done  as  far 
as  possible  when  the  children  are  in  school.  By  association  all  chil- 
dren will  learn  something  of  the  industrial  activities  involved  in  such 
repair  and  construction  work. 

The  manual  training  teacher  may  ask  his  boys  if  they  would  like 

,*• 

28 


to  know  what  the  work  of  a  real  carpenter  is  like.  They  are  not 
asked  if  they  want  to  be  carpenters.  They  are  told  that  a  carpenter 
will  come  to  the  school  on  a  certain  day  to  do  certain  work  about  the 
building.  Two  or  three  boys  may  be  selected  to  secure  a  job  with  this 
carpenter  as  helpers.  These  particular  boys  directly  and  the  entire^ 
class  indirectly  now  need  instruction  as  to  the  right  way  to  apply  for 
a  job.  When  they  begin  work  they  keep  a  record  of  what  they  have 
learned  each  day  by  observation,  asking  questions,  and  direct  experi- 
ence. When  they  return  to  the  manual  training  class,  because  the 
work  is  finished  or  they  give  up  their  jobs  to  other  boys,  the  carpen- 
ter's trade  is  discussed  from  every  standpoint.  The  same  program  is 
followed  with  the  school  plumber,  cabinetmaker,  electrician,  heating 
man,  steamier,  sheet  metal  worker,  painter  and  decorator,  plasterer, 
mason,  cement  man,  glazier,  etc.  Intelligence  concerning  trade  activi- 
ties is  developed  by  working  with  real  workmen  on  real  work  and 
studying  each  trade  in  a  systematic  way.  The  reports  made  in  the 
manual  training  shop  may  be  presented  in  the  auditorium  by  the 
boys  and  by  the  workmen  themselves. 

No  workman  should  be  permitted  to  earn  more  than  his  salary 
and  the  cost  of  his  material.  The  help  of  the  boys  should  only  bal- 
ance the  time  required  by  the  boys  from  the  workman. 

The  school  engineer  may  have  boys  studying  the  heating,  lighting 
and  ventilating  plant  in  the  same  way.  The  school  clerk  may  have 
several  children  assisting  in  turns  with  the  clerical  and  store  room 
work  of  the  school.  Students  may  assist  in  managing  the  auditorium, 
as  science  laboratory  assistants,  as  assistants  on  the  playground  and 
in  the  drawing  and  music  studios.  The  community  activities  of  the 
school  provide  the  need  for  children  to  assume  responsibility;  to  do 
things  accurately,  promptly  and  regularly;  and  to  become  familiar 
with  tools,  processes  and  general  industrial  and  commercial  condi- 
tions. The  girls  in  the  domestic  science  classes  may  assume  the  re- 
sponsibility of  running  the  school  lunch  rooms  and  the  business  train- 
ing so  secured  will  round  out  and  complete  the  training  secured  from 
the  domestic  science  classes. 

You  might  as  well  try  to  teach  children  to  swim  without  water 
in  which  to  swim  as  to  try  to  teach  them  to  work  without  real  work 
to  do.  The  child  must  not  only  have  a  place  to  work,  tools  to  work 
with  and  a  master  workman  to  direct  his  work,  but  there  must  be  real 
work  to  do,  and  it  must  be  done  under  normal  industrial  conditions. 

Experience    in    Real    Work    Under    Normal    Industrial    Conditions 
Should  Be  the  Foundation  for  Vocational  Guidance. 

Many  a  boy  goes  into  the  electrical  industry  from  the  school 
electrical  shop  with  the  idea  that  he  knows  quite  well  the  trade  and 
that  it  is  above  all  things  else  the  very  thing  that  he  wishes  to  do. 
Since  he  has  not  learned  to  build  motors,  generators,  etc.,  he  will  be 
placed  at  work  on  the  transmission  lines.  The  first  time  he  is  asked 
to  climb  a  pole  it  is  discovered  that  he  cannot  work  off  the  ground  on 
account  of  dizziness.  The  first  time  he  goes  down  into  a  tunnel  and 

29 


comes  out  covered  with  grease  lie  may  decide  that  he  has  made  a  big 
mistake  in  choosing  his  vocation. 

I  once  placed  in  a  machine  shop  a  young  man  twenty  years  old 
who  had  been  recommended  as  exceptional  for  the  machinist's  trade 
by  his  school  instructor.  The  young  man  was  so  sure  that  he  wanted 
to  be  a  machinist  that  he  made  every  preparation  to  settle  down  for 
a  life's  job.  The  manager  of  the  shop  gave  him  the  privilege  of  select- 
ing the  type  of  work  that  he  wished  to  do  and  offered  to  change  him 
to  other  work  any  time  at  his  request.  The  boy  could  not  be  induced 
to  stay  with  the  work  more  than  a  week,  and  is  now  happy  as  a  gov- 
ernment surveyor,  engaged  in  field  work. 

One  week  of  two  hours  a  day  on  a  real  job  with  a  real  workman 
is  worth  more  from  the  standpoint  of  vocational  guidance  than  two  or 
three  hours  a  day  every  day  in  the  year  in  an  artificial  shop  working 
on  artificial  work  and  under  artificial  conditions,  even  though  a  master 
workman  is  in  charge. 

Cooperative  Courses  Between  the  School  Manual  Training  Shop  and 
the  Workmen  Employed  on  School  Repair  and  Construction 
Work  Will  Develop  Naturally  and  Economically. 

The  boys  may  receive  their  credits  for  work  done  with  workmen 
through  a  system  of  time  keeping  and  school  credit  checks  which  illus- 
trates the  relative  earning  power  of  various  activities  and  provides 
additional  vocational  training  opportunities.  The  School  Building  De- 
partment will  find  it  advantageous  to  establish  a  shop  in  a  central  lo- 
cation for  the  sheet  metal  man,  also  for  the  electrician,  the  plumber 
and  each  of  the  other  workmen.  These  shops  should  be  established 
because  they  are  necessary  for  the  economical  handling  of  the  school 
repair  and  construction  work.  Later  it  will  be  proven  that  a  foundry, 
forge  shop,  machine  shop  and  pattern  shop  will  add  to  the  efficiency 
of  the  department  from  the  standpoint  of  getting  the  work  done.  So 
the  educational  opportunities  are  expanded  by  every  increase  in  effi- 
ciency in  handling  this  school  repair  and  construction  work. 

There  is  no  objection  to  the  addition  of  shops  beyond  the  actual 
needs  of  the  repair  and  construction  department,  if  you  can  afford 
them.  In  fact,  co-operative  courses  can  be  eliminated  entirely.  My 
judgment  is,  however,  that  the  amount  of  absolutely  necessary  repair 
work  in  the  schools  of  the  types  mentioned  is  sufficient  in  quantity  to 
provide  all  of  the  vocational  training  opportunities  for  the  elementary 
school.  Any  group  of  ten  or  twelve  average  school  plants  has  appro- 
priated for  1915  for  repairs,  construction  and  supplies  a  sufficient 
amount  to  employ  eight  or  ten  workmen  for  the  school  year  as  em- 
ployees of  the  Building  Department.  Each  workman  should  be  held 
responsible  for  the  satisfactory  condition  of  the  buildings  of  the  group 
in  his  division.  It  is  largely  an  individual  building  unit  proposition 
and  in  my  opinion  can  be  applied  to  any  number  of  buildings  and  the 
work  can  be  done  with  less  overhead  charge  and  more  economically 
than  it  can  be  done  under  a  contract  system. 

All  that  I  desire  is  that  the  department  give  the  plan  a  trial 

30 


under  fair  conditions.  The  schools  are  asking  private  industries  to 
help  train  the  students  in  co-operative  courses.  Why  cannot  the  school 
do  in  its  own  business  departments  what  it  expects  private  enterprise 
to  do? 

"If  it  is  objected  that  students  cannot  do  good  enough  work,  it 
must  be  observed  that  if  their  work  is  not  good  enough  for  the  schools 
then  they  are  not  sufficiently  educated  to  turn  out  into  the  world  of 
economic  industry.  Simply,  their  education  is  incomplete.  Responsi- 
bility rests  on  the  schools  to  perfect  it.  And  the  having  of  such  real 
work  to  do  offers  the  best  possible  educational  opportunity.  The  school 
may  also  object  that  such  work  is  slow.  If  well  done,  it  usually  is. 
The  school  must  exercise  foresight  and  plan  a  long  way  ahead.  Edu- 
cational opportunities  must  not  be  thrown  away  merely  because  it  is 
easier  to  throw  them  away  than  to  utilize  them.  Such  action  is  an 
evasion  of  responsibility  and  done  merely  because  the  work  would  be 
difficult.  It  is  difficult,  it  is  true.  The  world  presents  no  tasks  more 
difficult  than  those  of  real  education.  To  direct  a  group  of  embryo 
workmen,  using  valuable  material  that  must  not  be  wasted,  turning 
out  a  product  that  is  to  be  permanent,  intellectualizing  all  the  proc- 
esses so  as  to  build  at  the  same  time  permanent  educational  struc- 
tures within  the  boy,  so  to  speak — all  this  constitutes  a  form  of  labor 
immensely  more  difficult  than  the  labors  of  the  usual  construction 
foreman  who  is  looking  to  but  one-half  as  much  product  and  is  getting 
that  half  from  men  already  trained.  If  the  community  is  wise,  how- 
ever, it  is  not  going  to  permit  our  profession  to  shirk  responsibility 
merely  because  it  is  difficult.  It  will  not  permit  us  to  palm  off  a  con> 
bination  of  book  work  and  play  shop  work  as  'just  as  good'  when  it  is 
really  an  inferior  and  ineffective  substitute." 

The  community  activities  of  Public  School  89  are  sufficient  to  give 
one  hundred  and  sixty  children  two  hours'  instruction  each  day  in 
small  groups  of  four  to  six  students  each.  Three  hundred  and  twenty 
hours'  instruction  are  thus  secured  daily  at  no  cost  for  salaries  or 
material.  This  is  equivalent  to  the  work  of  three  full  time  traditional 
vocational  instructors.  A  traditional  vocational  instructor  at  estab- 
lished wages  receives  approximately  ten  cents  per  hour  for  each  stu- 
dent taught.  Ten  cents  per  hour  for  only  six  students  will  pay  the 
wages  of  the  average  workman  and  give  him  a  class  small  enough  to 
make  possible  real  productive  work.  But  the  instruction  with  the 
workman  does  not  cost  anything  since  the  workman  earns  his  wages 
in  productive  work,  and  the  three  hundred  and  twenty  hours  secured 
are  worth  several  times  that  amount  of  traditional  vocational  educa- 
tion instruction. 

The  habit  formed  in  school  of  securing  jobs  under  the  direction 
of  the  manual  training  teacher  is  continued  when  the  child  leaves  the 
school.  The  student  should  be  kept  in  school  at  least  part  of  the  day 
until  he  secures  a  job.  When  he  is  out  of  work  he  should  return  to 
school  for  part  time  or  full  time  until  he  secures  another  job.  The 
wage  earning  child  should  feel  free  to  discuss  with  the  manual  train- 
ing teacher  at  all  times  his  ambitions,  obstacles  and  progress  in  indus- 

31 


try.     Such  a  relationship  helps  to  bring  about  naturally  the  continua- 
tion and  co-operative  courses  for  wage  earning  children. 

Industrial  Education  for  Girls. 

The  problem  of  industrial  education  for  girls  is  much  more  diffi- 
cult than  that  for  boys.  Women  are  not  industrially  free.  Until  the 
artificial  barriers  are  obliterated  that  now  limit  the  activities  of 
women  no  complete  solution  can  be  found.  All  girls  need  to  be 
trained  well  in  the  art  of  home-making.  But  some  of  them  may 
never  run  homes  and  many  of  them  must  be  wage  earners  before  they 
have  a  chance  to  make  homes.  Even  in  the  office  work  of  many  indus- 
tries it  is  important  that  girls  know  something  of  industrial  shop 
practice.  There  is  no  reason  why  girls  should  not  have  short  courses 
in  some  of  the  shops  planned  for  boys.  Attending  school  in  a  boys' 
industrial  school  enables  girls  to  secure  a  viewpoint  of  industrial 
processes  that  may  be  of  great,  value  to  them. 

Some  Dangers  to  be  Avoided. 

It  would  be  a  simple  matter  in  the  school  to  teach  so  many  chil- 
dren one  certain  trade  that  there  would  be  no  market  for  the  labor. 
One  of  the  advantages  in  limiting  the  industrial  training  in  the  school 
to  the  school  community  industrial  needs  is  that  the  several  industries 
in  the  school  have  approximately  the  same  ratio  to  each  other  that 
these  industries  have  to  each  other  outside  of  the  school.  The  oppor- 
tunities to  teach  plumbing  from  the  school  work  are  in  proportion  to 
the  need  for  plumbers.  The  same  is  true  of  electricians,  painters,  etc. 
Continuation  and  co-operative  courses  have  the  sai"e  natural  check 
upon  the  unwise  emphasis  upon  any  one  trade.  The  only  safe  rule  in 
industrial  training  is  to  keep  the  school  and  the  shop  working  to- 
gether, each  supplementing  the  other. 

There  is  a  great  danger  that  public  funds  may  be  used  to  teach 
large  numbers  of  children  certain  highly  specialized  activities  that 
they  will  never  use,  when  their  time  might  have  been  spent  much 
more  profitably.  Power  machine  sewing  is  unquestionably  a  good 
thing  for  the  girls  in  the  Manhattan  Trade  School.  But  an  unwise 
extension  of  power  machine  sewing  to  the  average  elementary  school 
might  not  serve  the  best  interests  of  a  large  majority  of  the  girls. 

There  is  also  a  great  danger  that  young  children  may  make  a 
'playhouse  of  school  shops  under  wrong  conditions.  There  is  a  great 
danger  that  work  may  be  attempted  far  in  advance  of  their  stage  of 
development.  Children  may  be  unfitted  for  almost  any  type  of  indus- 
trial training  by  a  wrong  start. 

The  industries  taught  in  the  school  should  be  selected  because 
they  serve  as  a  foundation  for  mastering  the  processes  of  other  indus- 
tries as  well  as  offer  opportunities  for  employment  in  their  own  field. 
Good  manual  training  courses  serve  as  foundation  courses,  but  they 
do  not  train  for  immediate  employment.  But  the  immediate  employ- 
ment factor  should  be  secured  by  supplementing  manual  training 
courses  with  real  shop  experience,  not  by  throwing  the  manual  train- 
Ing  away. 

32 


Practical  science  and  drawing  courses  develop  principles  that 
have  a  common  application  to  all  industries.  Science  courses  should 
receive  as  much  time  and  be  favored  with  as  good  equipment  as  shop 
courses. 

The  study  of  industry  now  under  way  in  connection  with  your 
continuation  and  co-operative  classes  will  furnish  very  valuable  in- 
formation. So  will  the  study  of  the  common  principles  in  groups  of 
industries,  if  it  is  completed.  If  such  information  can  be  secured,  it 
will  make  the  establishment  of  school  shops  something  more  than  a 
guessing  contest. 

8.      CONCLUDING  RECOMMENDATIONS. 

In  conclusion  I  wish  to  call  special  attention  to  the  following: 
When  Public  School  89  was  visited  by  President  Churchill,  Dr.  Max- 
well, Dr.  Ettinger  and  others,  and  it  was  decided  to  attempt  a  reorgan- 
ization, two  physical  training  teachers  were  immediately  provided  at 
my  request  as  extra  teachers.  This  was  necessary  for  starting  the 
demonstration.  The  other  needs  of  the  school  were  not  so  urgent  and 
they  could  well  wait  for  the  regular  procedure.  No  time  has  been 
lost,  but  it  is  now  necessary  to  expedite  matters. 

I  wish  the  following  to  be  considered  by  the  proper  committees 
and  other  authorities  as  soon  as  possible: 

1 — Full  time  for  manual  training  and  cooking  teachers,  with  permis- 
sion to  give  instruction  as  described  on  page  26. 
2 — Branch  of  public  library  with  trained  librarian  in  charge. 
3 — Special  Activities  departmentalized  so  that  the  physical  training 

teachers  will  not  be  extra  teachers,  as  shown  on  page  9. 
4 — Permission  to  use  the  community  activities  of  the  school  for  Voca- 
tional Training,  as  described  in  last  section  of  report,  pages  25- 
31. 

5 — Permanent  improvements  as  requested  on  page  5  and  6. 
6 — Manual  Training  shop  work  supplemented  by  school  repair  work; 

see  pages  25-31. 
7 — Schools  for  additional  demonstrations. 

Note — The  quotations  are  from  the  South  Bend  School  Survey  by  Dr. 
John  Franklin  Bobbitt. 

Copyright,  1915,  by  William  Wirt. 


33 


Report  Upon  a        | 
Proposed   Reorganization 

for  Public  Schools  Nos.  28,  2,  42,  6, 

50,  44,  5,  53,  40,  32,  4,  and 

45,  the  Bronx,  New 

York  City 

This  group  of  twelve  schools,  I  am  informed,  is  the  most  congested 
of  any  group  of  twelve  schools  in  New  York  City.  There  are  only 
25,331  sittings  in  these  schools  and  35,580  children  were  registered  Dec. 
31,  1914,— 10,249  more  than  sittings.  The  registration  is  140%  of  the 
sittings.  But  2,500  of  the  present  sittings,  representing  fifty  class 
rooms,  are  unsatisfactory.  There  are  779  classes  in  the  schools  and 
only  480  satisfactory  class  rooms.  The  classes  are  162%  of  the 
satisfactory  class  rooms. 

Two  new  buildings,  Public  Schools  54  and  55,  are  under  con- 
struction and  a  leased  school  building  of  fifteen  class  rooms 
is  nearing  completion.  These  three  buildings  will  provide 
accommodations  for  4,500  children  and  103  additional  classes. 
When  these  three  buildings  are  completed  there  will  be  583 
satisfactory  class  rooms  for  779  classes.  The  registration  of  the  twelve 
schools  increased  4,000  pupils  from  Dec.  31,  1913,  to  Dec.  31,  1914.  At 
the  present  rate  of  increase  the  new  buildings  will  not  take  care  of 
the  increase  in  school  attendance  during  the  construction  of  the  said 
buildings.  Four  new  buildings  in  addition  to  those  under  construction 
are  needed  now  to  give  each  child  attending  the  schools  a  satisfactory 
school  seat.  Because  of  financial  limitations  the  Board  of  Education 
is  asking  for  only  six  new  elementary  school  buildings  for  the  entire 
city,  and  two  of  the  six,  to  cost  approximately  $1,000,000.00,  are  pro- 
posed for  the  relief  of  the  twelve  schools  named.  If  the  two  additional 
schools  requested,  together  with  the  three  under  construction,  could 
be  made  ready  for  use  tomorrow,  there  would  still  be  4,000  children 
without  satisfactory  seats  and  no  provision  for  normal  growth  in  the 
immediate  future. 

A  NEW  TYPE  OF  ORGANIZATION  NEEDED. 

At  the  request  of  President  Thomas  W.  Churchill,  Commissioners 
Frank  D.  Wilsey  and  John  Martin,  of  the  Board  of  Education,  I  here- 
with submit  a  plan  for  the  reorganization  of  the  twelve  schools  named 
so  that  1,022  classes  may  be  satisfactorily  accommodated  in  place  of 
the  583  now  provided  for. 

Under  the  New  Organization  unsatisfactory  annexes  are  vacated 
and  unsatisfactory  class  rooms  are  used  for  auditoriums,  play  rooms, 
laboratories  and  workshops.  In  place  of  the  779  classes  and  35,580 

ai 


children  now  in  the  schools,  room  will  be  secured  for  243  additional 
classes  and  a  total  registration  of  46,000  children.  A  future  increase 
in  school  registration  of  approximately  10,000  children  will  thus  be 
provided  for. 

To  accomplish  this  reorganization  rather  extensive  annexes  are 
necessary  at  Public  Schools  45,  4,  40  and  32,  costing  approximately 
$475,000.00.  The  remaining  eight  schools  need  only  slight  structural 
changes  and  additional  equipment  costing  approximately  $44,500.00. 
Additional  land  should  be  purchased  at  Public  Schools  45,  32,  40  and 
53,  costing  approximately  $225,000.00. 

The  cost  of  the  four  annexes,  the  remodeling,  the  equipment  and 
the  additional  land  will  be  $250,000.00  less  than  the  cost  for  buildings, 
equipment  and  sites  for  the  proposed  two  new  schools.  If  the  proposed 
two  new  schools  plan  is  followed,  a  total  satisfactory  capacity  on  a 
five  hour  single  school  system  for  671  classes  will  be  secured,  which  is 
108  classes  short  of  present  enrollment.  If  the  reorganization  at  less 
cost  than  the  two  new  schools  plan  is  followed,  satisfactory  accommo- 
dations and  a  longer  school  day  will  be  secured  for  1,022  classes,  which 
is  243  classes  more  than  are  now  enrolled, — a  difference  of  351  classes 
and  16,000  children.* 

GREATER  EDUCATIONAL  FACILITIES. 

The  true  economy  of  the  New  Organization  is  to  be  found  in  the 
greater  educational  facilities  provided  for  all  of  the  children  rather 
than  in  the  great  capacity  of  the  plants  secured  under  the  new  plan. 

The  upper  grades,  511  classes,  will  have  a  daily  school  program 
of  the  following  type:  eighty  minutes  in  class  room  for  academic 
work,  forty  minutes  in  gymnasium  or  play  yard  or  grounds  for  phys- 
ical training  and  play,  forty  minutes  for  general  exercises  in  the 
auditorium,  sixty  minutes  for  luncheon,  one  hundred  and  forty  min- 
utes in  class  room  for  academic  work,  and  eighty  minutes  for  drawing 
rooms,  science  laboratories,  or  manual  training  and  workshops.  The 
lower  grades,  511  classes,  will  have  a  program  of  the  same  type  as 
the  upper  grades  except  that  the  last  period  of  eighty  minutes  will  be 
given  to  play,  excursions,  library  work,  church  instruction,  or  to  work 
at  home.  As  a  rule  the  children  will  have  380  minutes  at  school  in 
addition  to  the  luncheon  hour  in  place  of  the  300  minutes  provided  in 
the  regulation  full  time  school.  Such  a  study-work-and-play  school  re- 
moves the  children  very  largely  from  the  demoralizing  life  of  the 
street  and  gives  ample  time  for  the  academic,  physical  and  pre-voca- 
tional  training. 

Under  the  old  regular  full  time  organization  only  manual  training 
and  cooking  construction  shops  are  provided  and  for  seventh  and 
eighth  grades  alone.  Science  laboratories  for  individual  work  and 
drawing  studios  with  special  equipment  are  not  provided  at  all. 

Under  the  New  Organization  manual  training,  cooking  and  sewing 


*The  increase  in  capacity  is  estimated  by  classes.  Since  the  register 
is  45.6  children  per  class  a  reduction  to  42  children  per  class  will 
enable  the  1,022  classes  to  accommodate  42,924  children,  7,344  more 
than  are  now  enrolled  in  the  school. 

35 


construction  shops,  drawing  studios  with,  special  equipment,  and  sci- 
ence laboratories  for  individual  work  by  students  are  provided  for  all 
grades  above  the  fourth  year.  Besides  there  will  be  sixty-three  additional 
workshops  with  special  equipment  and  teachers  distributed  ad- 
vantageously in  the  twelve  schools.  Also,  there  will  be  provided 
gardens,  better  auditoriums  and  music  rooms,  better  class  rooms,  gym- 
nasiums and  playgrounds,  and  five  swimming  pools. 

It  is  desirable  under  the  new  organization  for  one  class  of  older 
students  during  each  of  the  eighty  minute  periods  for  vocational  train- 
ing to  be  distributed  throughout  the  school  as  teachers'  assistants. 
The  several  classes  perform  this  duty  in  turns,  so  that  each  child  acts 
as  teacher  assistant  during  the  shop  period  for  approximately  four 
weeks  each  year.  Such  work  gives  the  student  the  best  possible  train- 
ing for  developing  leadership,  initiative  and  the  ability  to  assume  re- 
sponsibility. It  also  makes  possible  many  small  classes  without  extra 
teachers  and  without  extra  rooms. 

COMPARISON  OF  TIME  SCHEDULES  IN  GRADES  OF  THE 
5th,  6th,  7th  AND  8th  YEARS. 


Average   number  of 
minutes  per  week 
under  regular  full 
time   organization 
in  New  York  City. 

SUBJECTS 

Average   number  of 
minutes  per  week 
under      New      Or- 
ganization   Bronx 
Schools. 

75 
60 

120 
1010 

80 
85 
70 
1500 

Opening   Exercises 
Music 
Physical  Training,   Recesses 
Physiology   and  Hygiene 
English,     Geography,     History 
and  Arithmetic. 
Nature  Study  and  Science 
Drawing 
Construction    Work 
Total   Time   Per  Week 

100 
100 

200 

1100 
133 
133 
134 
1900 

DESCRIPTION    OF   THE    TWELVE    SCHOOLS. 

Ungraded  classes  are  listed  as  regular  classes,  as  it  has  been  de- 
termined that  a  school  program  of  work,  study  and  play  is  desirable 
for  these  students.  Kindergarten,  blind,  open  air,  deaf  and  cripple 
classes  are  not  listed  in  the  reorganization.  Where  these  special 
classes  are  now  occupying  unsatisfactory  basement  rooms,  etc.,  pro- 
vision is  made  to  transfer  them  to  desirable  class  rooms.  In  addition 
to  class  rooms  for  the  regular  classes  noted  in  the  reorganization  of 
the  several  buildings,  satisfactory  facilities  are  provided  for  all  of  the 
special  classes  that  are  now  being  accommodated,  but  no  provision  is 
made  for  additional  special  classes  except  at  P.  S.  44. 

A  map  of  the  district  including  the  twelve  schools  is  attached  to 
this  report  as  Exhibit  A. 

Public  School  No.   28,  Bronx. 

Public  School  28  has  fifty-eight  regular  classes  in  forty-five  regular 
class  rooms,  one  wood  working  shop  and  one  cooking  room. 

The  ground  floor,  play  yard  and  the  fine  basement  play  room  pro- 
vide ample  play  space  for  nine  classes  at  one  time.  There  is  a  large 


36 


gymnasium  on  the  top  floor  that  is  not  desirable  for  play,  and  should 
be  used  for  drawing  rooms. 

The  auditorium  on  the  fourth  floor  should  be  made  into  six  regular 
class  rooms  by  installing  permanent  partitions  for  the  sliding  parti- 
tions. The  wall  partitions  should  be  removed  from  the  four  com- 
bination auditorium  and  class  rooms  on  the  second  floor  and  the  audi- 
torium thus  secured  should  be  seated  for  a  permanent  auditorium. 
Since  four  class  rooms  are  thus  used  for  the  auditorium  there  will  be 
left  only  forty-one  regular  class  rooms.  Thirty-six  of  these  should  be 
used  for  regular  class  work,  two  of  the  remaining  five  class  rooms 
should  be  used  for  science  laboratories,  one  for  a  music  studio  and 
two  for  workshops.  These  five  special  rooms,  with  the  manual  training 
shop  and  cooking  room  and  drawing  studios,  will  provide  facilities 
for  nine  classes  in  science,  drawing,  music,  manual  training  or  shop 
work  at  one  time.  Seventy-two  regular  classes  may  be  accommodated 
in  this  school  with  thirty-six  classes  in  thirty-six  class  rooms,  nine  in 
the  auditorium,  nine  at  play,  nine  in  special  work,  and  nine  primary 
classes  with  an  extra  period  for  play,  religious  instruction  in  churches, 
excursions,  library  work,  etc. 

With  a  full  register  of  classes  seventy-six  teachers  should  be  em- 
ployed. Fifty-six  teachers  should  teach  the  history,  geography,  arith- 
metic, language  and  reading,  and  manage  the  auditorium.  Two  teach- 
ers should  have  charge  of  the  music,  four  of  the  play  and  physical 
training,  one  of  the  library,  two  of  the  drawing,  two  of  the  science 
laboratories,  and  nine  of  the  manual  training,  domestic  science  and 
art  and  the  shop  work. 

There  are  thirteen  regular  classes  in  the  eight-room  frame  annex 
which  must  be  used  for  class  purposes  in  order  to  enable  the  city 
to  hold  the  property.  A  special  program  can  be  arranged  for  this 
annex  to  accommodate  twelve  classes.  Public  School  28  and  the  annex 
can  therefore  accommodate  eighty-four  classes,  a  gain  of  thirteen 
classes  over  the  present  enrollment,  and  thirty-one  classes  more  than 
the  normal  capacity  of  fifty- three  classes  in  a  single  school  system. 

The  only  expense  will  be  the  placing  of  permanent  partitions  in 
the  auditorium  class  rooms,  and  the  equipment  of  the  auditorium, 
laboratories,  studios  and  shops, — approximately  $10,000. 

Public  School   No.   2,   Bronx. 

Public  School  No.  2  has  fifty-nine  classes  in  fifty-two  class  rooms 
and  an  undesirable  six-room  annex.  The  annex  should  be  vacated. 

There  is  ample  play  space  for  nine  classes  at  one  time  in  the 
basement  play  yard,  and  there  is  a  small  park  adjacent  to  the  school 
lot.  The  school  gardens  should  be  in  Crotona  Park. 

This  school,  unfortunately,  is  adjacent  to  the  elevated  railroad 
and  twelve  class  rooms  are  practically  impossible  for  school  work. 
Three  of  these  twelve  class  rooms  should  be  used  for  play  rooms  and 
the  remaining  nine  rooms  should  be  used  for  workshops,  drawing 
rooms  and  laboratories.  A  permanent  auditorium  should  be  con- 
structed from  four  combination  class  rooms  on  the  first  floor  and  so 

37 


arranged  that  it  will  be  protected  from  the  noise  of  the  elevated  rail- 
way. Thirty-six  desirable  class  rooms  will  remain  for  regular  class 
work  and  seventy-two  classes  may  be  accommodated.  This  is  twelve 
classes  more  than  the  present  register  and  thirty-two  classes  more 
than  the  capacity  of  the  school  on  a  single  system  five-hour  program. 

The  cost  for  equipment  and  remodeling  should  be  approximately 
$7,500.00. 

Public  School  No.  42,  Bronx. 

Public  School  No.  42  has  seventy-five  classes  in  forty  class  rooms 
and  a  six-room  annex.  A  gymnasium,  four  shops,  and  a  play  yard 
large  enough  for  five  or  six  classes  at  one  time  are  available. 

It  will  be  necessary  to  take  four  of  the  forty  class  rooms  for  an 
auditorium.  Sixty-four  classes  may  be  accommodated  by  using  thirty- 
two  rooms  for  regular  class  work  and  the  remaining  four  class  rooms 
and  the  four  shops  for  special  work.  Either  Claremont  or  Crotona 
Park  may  be  used  for  large  playground  and  gardens. 

The  cost  for  equipment  and  structural  changes  will  be  approxi- 
mately $5,000.00. 

At  present  there  are  sixty-three  classes  in  the  building,  with 
twelve  additional  classes  in  an  annex  that  I  understand  is  not  satis- 
factory for  school  purposes.  The  annex  should  be  abandoned  when 
new  Public  School  55  is  completed. 

Public   School  No.   6,   Bronx. 

Public  School  No.  6  has  forty  classes  in  thirty-one  class  rooms, 
one  manual  training  room  and  two  portable  schools.  The  play  yard 
is  ample  for  six  classes  at  play. 

Pour  of  the  combination  class  rooms  should  be  equipped  for  a 
permanent  auditorium.  This  will  leave  twenty-seven  class  rooms. 
Twenty-four  should  be  used  for  regular  class  work,  and  the  remaining 
three  class  rooms  and  the  manual  training  room  and  two  portables 
should  be  used  for  laboratories  and  shops.  Satisfactory  accommoda- 
tions may  thus  be  provided  for  forty-eight  classes,  an  increase  of  eight 
classes  over  present  register  and  seventeen  classes  over  normal  single 
school  system. 

Cost  for  equipment  and  structural  changes  will  be  approximately 
$5,000.00. 

Public  School  No.  50,  Bronx. 

Public  School  No.  50  has  sixty-nine  classes  in  forty-four  class 
rooms,  two  shops,  a  fine  gymnasium,  auditorium  and  play  yard. 

Seventy-two  classes  may  be  accommodated  by  using  thirty-six 
class  rooms  for  regular  work  and  the  remaining  eight  class  rooms  and 
two  shops  for  special  work.  The  number  of  classes  may  be  increased 
three  over  present  register,  and  twenty-eight  over  normal  single  school 
system. 

The  cost  for  additional  equipment  will  be  approximately  $5,000.00. 

Public  School  No.  44,  Bronx. 

Public  School  No.  44  has  sixty-nine  classes  in  forty  regular  class 

38 


rooms,  two  shops,  a  fine  auditorium,  gymnasium  and  play  yard.    Crtv  - 
tona  Park  can  be  used  for  large  play  ground  and  for  gardens. 

Sixty-four  regular  classes  may  be  accommodated  by  using  thirty- 
two  rooms  for  regular  class  work  and  the  two  shops  and  six  class 
rooms  for  special  work.  Two  class  rooms  will  be  left  for  abnormal 
classes.  Five  regular  classes  should  be  transferred  to  adjacent  schools. 

The  cost  for  additional  equipment  will  be  approximately  $3,500.00. 

Public   School   No.   5,   Bronx. 

Public  School  No.  5  has  twenty-seven  classes  in  nineteen  regular 
class  rooms,  a  good  auditorium  and  two  portable  buildings.  Four  classes 
are  now  using  the  auditorium  as  class  rooms  with  only  curtains  for 
partitions.  There  is  play  space  in  the  basement  play  yard  for  six 
classes  to  play  at  once. 

By  removing  the  portable  buildings  a  satisfactory  outdoor  play- 
ground can  be  secured.  The  basement  has  a  fine  shop  room  large 
enough  to  accommodate  two  small  shops.  In  these  shops  and  the 
nineteen  class  rooms  and  auditorium  and  play  facilities,  thirty-two 
classes  may  be  accommodated  by  using  sixteen  of  the  most  desirable 
rooms  for  class  rooms.  This  is  five  classes  more  than  are  now  in  the 
school  and  thirteen  more  than  the  capacity  of  the  main  building  on 
a  five-hour  single  school  system. 

The  cost  of  moving  the  portables  should  be  charged  to  the  school 
to  which  they  are  moved.  The  cost  for  equipment  and  remodeling 
should  be  approximately  $5,000.00. 

Public   School   No.   53,   Bronx. 

Public  S'chool  No.  53  has  fifty-nine  classes  in  forty-four  class 
rooms,  two  shops,  a  fine  auditorium,  gymnasium  and  play  yard. 

Seventy-two  classes  may  be  accommodated  by  using  thirty-six 
rooms  for  regular  class  work  and  the  remaining  eight  class  rooms  and 
the  two  shops  for  special  work.  The  capacity  of  the  school  may  be 
thus  increased  by  thirteen  classes  over  present  register  and  twenty- 
eight  classes  over  register  on  single  system  five-hour  school. 

The  cost  for  additional  equipment  will  be  approximately  $3,500.00. 
Since  the  school  is  not  near  a  park,  additional  land  should  be  pur- 
chased for  a  large  playground  and  for  gardens. 

Public   School  No.  40,   Bronx. 

Public  School  No.  40  has  ninety-six  classes  in  fifty-seven  class 
rooms  and  two  work  shops.  There  is  a  satisfactory  play  yard  and  a 
small  gymnasium. 

The  present  combination  class  rooms  and  auditorium  cannot  be 
used  for  auditorium  purposes  and  should  be  given  permanent  parti- 
tions for  class  rooms.  Land  should  be  purchased  adjoining  the  present 
lot  and  an  annex  should  be  constructed  containing  an  auditorium, 
gymnasium,  swimming  pool,  two  workshops  and  a  library.  Ninety-iix 
classes  may  then  be  satisfactorily  accommodated  by  using  forty-eight 

39 


rooms  for  regular  class  work,  and  the  remaining  nine  class  rooms  and 
four  workshops  for  special  work. 

The  annex  and  equipment  will  cost  approximately  $75,000.00.  The 
land  will  cost  $22,500. 

Public  School  No.  32,  Bronx. 

Public  School  No.  32  has  sixty  classes  in  thirty-eight  class  rooms, 
one  workshop  and  one  cooking  room.  Five  class  rooms  and  one  cook- 
ing room  are  now  in  a  gymnasium  with  only  curtains  for  partitions. 
Three  class  rooms  are  unsatisfactory  basement  rooms,  one  is  an  unsat- 
isfactory attic  room,  and  twelve  class  rooms  are  combination  audi- 
torium and  class  rooms. 

By  placing  permanent  partitions  in  the  combination  auditorium 
class  rooms  twenty-nine  satisfactory  class  rooms  and  five  shop  rooms 
may  be  secured.  The  gymnasium  and  play  yard  are  ample  for  a  large 
school.  The  building  is  close  to  Bronx  Park  for  large  outdoor  play  yard 
and  for  gardens.  The  present  site  can  be  enlarged  without  great  cost.  I 
believe  that  it  is  desirable  to  make  Public  School  32  a  seventy-two 
class  school,  which  will  enable  it  to  accommodate  twelve  more  classes 
than  are  now  in  the  school. 

An  annex  should  be  built  containing  a  swimming  pool,  an  audi- 
torium, five  shops  and  seven  class  rooms,  costing  approximately  $100,- 
000.00.  The  additional  land  will  cost  $35,000. 

Public   School  No.  4,   Bronx. 

Public  School  No.  4  has  eighty-two  classes  in  forty-six  class  rooms 
and  four-room  annex.  The  school  is  greatly  crowded,  but  has  a  very 
fortunate  location  adjacent  to  Crotona  Park.  The  ground  floor  play 
yard  is  large  enough  for  nine  or  ten  classes  at  play  at  one  time. 

The  elevated  railway  in  the  rear  of  the  building  is  very  objection- 
able on  account  of  the  noise.  Since  there  is  ample  space  for  an 
annex,  a  building  whieh  would  include  two  swimming  pools,  two 
gymnasiums,  an  auditorium,  and  twelve  class  room  units  for  special 
work,  could  be  built  between  the  elevated  and  the  present  building. 
The  present  building  would  thus  be  protected  from  the  noise  of  the 
railway  and  the  annex  could  be  planned  with  a  blank  wall  next  to  the 
railway. 

Forty-four  class  rooms  should  be  used  for  regular  work,  while 
eleven  classes  are  in  the  auditorium,  eleven  at  play  and  eleven  in 
the  fourteen  special  work  rooms.  Thus,  eighty-eight  regular  classes 
can  be  accommodated. 

The  cost  of  the  annex  and  equipment  will  be  approximately 
$150,000.00.  As  a  rule  I  do  not  favor  spending  so  much  money  on  an 
annex,  but  at  Public  School  No.  4  an  annex  is  necessary  to  eliminate 
the  noise  from  the  elevated  railway,  land  for  the  site  is  now  owned 
by  the  city,  and  since  the  park  is  adjacent  to  the  school  for  play  and 
gardens,  it  is  desirable  to  concentrate  a  large  number  of  children  in 
this  school. 

40 


Public  School  No.  45,   Bronx. 

Public  School  No.  45,  Bronx,  has  seventy-two  classes  in  forty-one 
regular  class  rooms,  one  manual  training  workshop,  one  cooking  room., 
a  fine  auditorium,  a  play  yard  and  a  gymnasium.  With  seventy-two 
classes  in  forty-one  class  rooms,  the  majority  of  the  children  were 
accommodated  on  a  part-time  program. 

Public  School  45  was  selected  as  one  of  the  seven  pre-vocational 
training  experimental  schools.  Owing  to  its  very  great  over-crowding 
it  was  planned  to  construct  two  workshops  adjacent  to  the  present 
building  and  to  lease  six  class  rooms  in  a  nearby  parochial  school 
under  construction.  By  transferring  the  pupils  occupying  six  class 
rooms  in  Public  School  45  to  the  leased  school  rooms,  the  six  class 
rooms  so  vacated  in  Public  School  45  could  be  used  for  pre-vocational 
training  workshops.  The  delay  in  the  completion  of  the  parochial 
school  prevented  the  reorganization  of  Public  School  45,  and  finally 
it  was  decided  to  reorganize  the  school  and  retain  all  of  the  pupils 
in  attendance.  The  reorganization  was  completed  February  25,  1915, 
without  any  additional  equipment  or  building  facilities.  The  Bureau 
of  Buildings  was  of  the  opinion  that  since  the  community  needed  addi- 
tional school  accommodations  it  would  be  much  more  economical 
to  build  a  regular  annex  to  the  present  school  than  make  expensive 
structural  changes  in  the  present  building  and  construct  the  two 
workshop  annexes. 

The  annex  should  include  a  swimming  pool  and  a  forge  shop  on 
the  ground  floor;  a  pattern  shop,  a  foundry  and  machine  shop  on  the 
second  floor;  two  drawing  rooms  and  two  science  rooms  on  the  third 
floor;  four  class  rooms  on  the  fourth  floor  and  four  class  rooms  on 
the  fifth  floor. 

The  school  now  has  the  following  pre-vocational  training  shops 
under  process  of  equipment:  cooking,  sewing,  millinery,  printing, 
carpentry,  gardening,  pottery,  manual  training,  two  science  labora- 
tories and  two  drawing  rooms.  By  adding  a  forge  shop,  a  pattern 
shop,  a  foundry,  a  machine  shop,  two  science  laboratories  and  two 
drawing  rooms,  the  school  will  have  a  very  satisfactory  equipment  for 
a  pre-vocational  school. 

A  plot  of  ground  approximately  one  hundred  feet  by  ninety-five 
feet  adjacent  to  the  present  building  can  be  purchased  at  a  very  low 
cost.  The  proposed  annex  will  cover  half  of  the  tract  and  the  other 
half  can  be  used  as  a  garden.  The  present  school  garden  is  on  land 
loaned  temporarily  to  the  school  and  may  be  reclaimed  by  the  owner 
at  any  time. 

At  present  the  building  is  over-crowded  with  seventy-two  classes 
even  under  the  reorganization,  because  only  seven  rooms  are  available 
for  the  nine  classes  in  science,  drawing  and  shop  work.  The  pro- 
posed annex  will  provide  accommodations  for  sixteen  additional 
classes,  and  at  the  same  time  enable  the  school  to  furnish  satisfactory 
accommodations  for  eighty-eight  classes. 

The  value  of  the  accommodations  for  sixteen  additional  classes 

41 


should  pay  the  complete  cost  of  the  proposed  annex,  approximately 
$150,000.00.  The  real  economy  of  the  improvement,  however,  is  to  be 
found  in  the  better  school  accommodations  provided,  and  for  eighty- 
eight  classes  with  a  much  richer  schedule  of  activities  in  place  of 
forty-one  classes  on  the  regular  full  time  single  school  system. 

All  of  the  classes  will  have  a  school  day  of  380  minutes  in  addition 
to  the  luncheon  hour.  The  forty-four  upper  grade  classes  will  have 
a  daily  school  program  of  220  minutes  for  reading,  arithmetic,  lan- 
guage, history  and  geography;  forty  minutes  for  play  and  physical 
training;  forty  minutes  for  auditorium  exercises,  and  eighty  minutes 
for  science,  drawing,  or  shop  work.  The  regular  school  hours  are 
from  8:30  to  3:50,  but  the  after  school  athletic  center  is  open  until 
5:30. 

THE   REORGANIZATION   PROGRAM. 

Following  are  the  X  and  Y  programs  in  use  at  Public  School  45. 
Similar  programs  are  planned  for  the  other  schools. 

X   School. 


School 
Hours 

36  Class 
Rooms, 
Divisions 

k  2<  3 

Auditorium 

Gymnasium, 
Playground, 
Playroom 

1  Man.  Training, 
1  Cooking, 
2   Science, 
2   Drawing, 
1    Sewing, 
4    Shops 

Church, 
Home, 
Excur- 
sions. 
Library, 
Play 

8:30-  9:10 

Arith. 

9:10-  9:50 

Lang. 

9:60-10:30 

Div.   1 

Div.   3 

Div.  2 

Div.   4 

10:30-11:10 

i           "      3 

"      1 

"      2 

"       4 

11:10-12:10 

All  at  Luncheon 

12:10-   1:10 

Read. 

1:10-  1:50 

Hist. 

1:50-  2:30 

Geo. 

2:30-  3:10 

Div.  2 

Div.   4 

Div.   1 

Div.  3 

3:10-  3:50 

"       4 

«'       2 

"      1 

"      3 

3:50-   5:30 

) 
After  School  Athl 

etic  Center 

Summary  of  Time  Schedule. 

The   average    time    for   arithmetic,    language,    reading,    history    and 
geography  in  New  York  City  Schools  is  200  minutes. 


Divisions 

Class 
Time 

And 

Play 

Special 

Play. 
Etc, 

Div.    1,    9    classes,    grades    4B    to    8B 

220 

40 

40 

80 

Div.    2,    9           "                "             "               " 

220 

40 

40 

80 

Div.    3,    9           "                "           1A    to    4A 

220 

40 

40 

80 

Div.    4,    9 

220 

40 

40 

80 

NUMBER  OF  MINUTES. 


42 


Y  School. 


School 
Hours 

36    Class 
Rooms, 
Divisions 
1,   2,   3 
&  4 

Auditorium 

Gymnasium, 
Playground, 
Playroom 

1  Man.  Training, 
1  Cooking. 
2   Science. 
2   Drawing. 
1    Sewing, 
4    Shops 

Home, 
Excur- 
sions. 
Church, 
Library, 
Play 

8:30-  9:10 

Div.  1 

Div.  3 

Div.  2 

Div.  4 

9:10-   9:50 

"      3 

"      1 

•«      2 

"       4 

9:50-10:30 

Arith. 

10:30-11:10 

Lang. 

11:10-12:10 
12:10-  1:10 
1:10-  l:5u 
1:50-  2:30 

Read. 

-Div.  2 
"      4 

All  at  Lunch 

Div.  4 
"      2 

eon 
"Div.  1 
•'     1 

Div.  S 
"      S 

2:30-  3:10 

Hist. 

- 

3:10-  3:50 

Geo. 

1:50-  5:30 

After 

School  Athle 

tic  Center 

Number  of  School  Room  Units  Required. 

Thirty-six  class  rooms  are  used  for  the  regular  class  work  in 
arithmetic,  language,  history  and  geography.  Two  rooms  are  used  for 
science  laboratories,  two  for  drawing  studios  and  one  for  sewing. 
With  one  manual  training  shop  and  one  cooking  laboratory  only  seven 
rooms  are  available  for  the  special  work  of  nine  classes.  Therefore, 
the  millinery  classes  are  now  using  the  men's  rest  room,  the  classes 
in  printing  and  carpentry  are  using  the  basement,  and  in  pottery  they 
are  using  a  corner  of  the  play  yard.  The  annex  will  provide  ample 
facilities  for  all  shops  and  laboratories. 

Number  of  Teachers  Required. 

Thirty-six  classes  must  be  taught  for  ten  periods  daily  in  the 
academic  department,  a  total  of  360  teaching  periods.  Pour  teachers 
manage  the  auditorium  for  eight  periods  during  the  day,  a  total  of 
thirty-two  teaching  periods.  Therefore,  a  total  of  392  teaching  periods 
are  required  for  the  academic  instruction  and  the  auditorium.  Since 
each  teacher  can  teach  seven  periods  during  five  hours,  fifty-six  teach- 
ers will  be  required  for  the  auditorium  and  the  academic  instruction. 
In  Public  School  45  there  were  employed  seventy-two  regular  class 
teachers,  two  manual  training  teachers  and  one  cooking  teacher.  By 
assigning  fifty-six  of  these  seventy-five  teachers  to  academic  instruc- 
tion and  auditorium  work,  four  to  playground  and  physical  training, 
one  to  music,  two  to  science,  two  to  drawing,  and  eight  to  shop  work 
and  manual  training,  the  number  of  teachers  remains  the  same  as 
before  the  reorganization. 


43 


SUMMARY  OF  REORGANIZATION. 


£ 
o 

0 

o 

w 

tl 

2§ 

apacity 

g 

d 

.2 

CO 

to 

M 

0} 

o 
Sod 

£1 

Satisfac 
Glass  E 

Present 

Classes 

blass  C 
Secured 

|| 

Regulai 
Teachei 

Music 
Teachei 

IPlay 
|Teachei 

Science 
Teachei 

Drawin 
JTeachei 

Shop 
ITeachei 

28 

53 

71 

84 

$   10,000 

68 

2 

36 

59 

72 

7,500 

56 

2 

4 

4 

2 

8 

42 

40 

75 

64 

5,000 

50 

2 

3 

3 

2 

7 

6 

31 

40 

48 

5,000 

38 

1 

3 

2 

2 

4 

50 

44 

69 

72 

5,000 

56 

2 

4 

4 

2 

8 

44 

40 

69 

66 

3,500 

52 

2 

3 

3 

2 

7 

5 

19 

27 

32 

5,000 

25 

53 

44 

59 

72 

3,500 

56 

2 

4 

4 

2 

8 

40 

57 

96 

96 

75,000 

75 

3 

6 

4 

4 

9 

32 

29 

60 

72 

100,000 

56 

2 

4 

4 

2 

8 

4 

46 

82 

88 

150,000 

69 

2 

5 

4 

3 

9 

45 

41 

72 

88 

150,000 

69 

2 

5 

4 

3 

9 

54 

44 

72 

56 

2 

4 

4 

2 

8 

55 

44 

72 

56 

2 

4 

4 

2 

8 

Annex 

15 

24 

19 

1 

1 

1 

1 

3 

Totals 

583 

779 

1,022 

$519,500 

801 

28 

56 

50 

32 

108 

Cost  of 

land 

$225,000 

Since  the  reorganization  provides  accommodations  for  46,000  chil- 
dren, and  only  35,580  are  in  the  schools,  only  the  teachers  necessary 
for  the  present  classes  will  be  employed.  With  a  full  registration  of 
46,000  children  1,075  teachers  are  shown  as  employed  for  1,022  classes, 
an  apparent  excess  of  fifty-three.  Fifteen  of  the  shop  teachers  are 
the  practical  women  in  the  domestic  science  departments  who  earn 
their  salaries  in  the  school  luncheon  rooms.  As  far  as  possible  the 
shops  do  the  school  repair  and  minor  construction  work,  so  that  the 
salaries  of  a  number  of  men  will  be  earned  in  the  shops.  The  remain- 
ing apparently  extra  teachers  are  more  than  balanced  by  the  usual 
teachers  of  special  subjects  and  the  supervisors  who  are  eliminated. 

PRE-VOCATIONAL  TRAINING. 

In  the  reorganization  it  is  planned  for  all  schools  to  include  the 
kindergarten  and  eight  common  school  grades.  All  schools  of  sixty- 
four  classes  and  over  should  also  include  two  years  beyond  the  com- 
mon school  courses,  and  these  extension  courses  should  be  open  to 
all  students  who  do  not  care  to  go  to  the  regular  high  schools.  The 
shops,  laboratories  and  drawing  studios  of  these  schools  are  sufficient 
for  pre-vocational  courses  for  all  students  between  fourteen  and  six- 
teen years  of  age. 

A  total  of  fifty  science  teachers,  thirty-two  drawing  teachers,  and 
one  hundred  and  eight  shop  teachers  are  employed  in  all  of  the 
schools.  Manual  training  and  domestic  science  and  art  should  be 
taught  in  all  schools,  thus  requiring  sixty  teachers  for  these 
subjects.  One  pattern,  one  foundry,  one  forge,  two  machine,  two  sheet 
metal,  two  electrical,  two  plumbing,  two  carpentry,  two  cabinet,  three 


44 


painting  ana  three  printing  shops  are  sufficient  for  the  entire  group. 
Twenty-seven  additional  shops  must  be  selected  to  complete  the  list, 
so  that  a  great  variety  of  shop  work  will  be  provided.  All  students 
in  the  upper  511  classes  may  have  eighty  minutes  every  day  for 
shop  work,  drawing  or  science.  If  they  wish,  this  eighty-minute 
period  might  be  given  to  additional  instruction  in  academic  work. 
If  desirable  for  certain  types  of  students,  they  may  have  one  hundred 
and  sixty  or  more  minutes  daily  for  shop  work,  drawing  or  science. 
Each  child  should  have  the  type  of  work  and  the  quantity  that  he 
individually  needs.  This  pre-vocational  training  is  secured  without 
extra  teachers  and  with  an  economy  of  building  space. 

Pupils  in  the  upper  grades  may  attend  the  school  offering  the 
special  shop  work  desired.  Much  more  complete  pre-vocational  oppor- 
tunities are  thus  secured  for  the  entire  district  than  would  be  possible 
in  a  special  pre-vocational  school. 

All  Children   Should  Have  Opportunities   for  Prevocational  Train- 
ing. 

As  I  understand  the  school  problem  in  New  York  City,  it  is  con- 
sidered desirable  to  enlarge  present  school  opportunities  for  the  many 
children  who  cannot  follow  regular  scholastic  training  through  the 
eight  years  of  common  schools,  the  four  years  of  the  high  school,  and 
the  four  years  of  the  college.  A  difference  of  opinion  seems  to  exist 
as  to  whether  the  children  who  cannot  go  to  high  school  and  college 
should  have  the  opportunities  for  the  kind  of  training  that  they  need 
in  the  regular  elementary  school,  or  in  a  separate  pre-vocational 
school.  This  segregation  of  students  may  be  effected  by  placing  the  stu- 
dents either  in  a  distinct  department  in  elementary  schools  or  in  en- 
tirely separate  buildings. 

Nearly  all  children,  however,  like  to  work  in  shops,  drawing 
studios  and  science  laboratories.  In  fact,  the  best  students  in  the 
workshops,  drawing  studios  and  science  laboratories  are  often  found 
in  the  ranks  of  the  students  who  do  go  to  college.  I  believe  that  it 
has  been  conclusively  demonstrated  that  such  work  is  as  valuable  and 
desirable  for  students  who  go  to  college  as  for  students  who  go  into 
industry  and  commerce.  But  it  has  also  been  demonstrated  that  when 
the  shop  work  and  drawing  are  substituted  for  mathematics  and  lan- 
guage, as  is  often  the  case  in  the  effort  to  include  these  additional 
activities  in  the  short  school  day,  the  prospective  high  school  and  col- 
lege students  suffer  from  the  lack  of  the  vitalizing  reaction  of  a  suf- 
ficient amount  of  shop  work  and  science  upon  their  mathematics,  etc. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  student  who  plans  to  go  into  commerce  and 
industry  suffers  from  the  lack  of  time  for  the  thorough,  scientific, 
mathematical  and  language  training  necessary  for  proficiency  in  the 
shopwork  and  later  success  in  industry  and  commerce. 

The   School   Must  Do   Today   What  the   School,   Home,    and   Small 
Shop  Formerly  Did  Together. 

Children  formerly  were  in  school  five  hours  a  day  for  190  days,  950 

45 


hours  each  year,  with  about  200  minutes  daily  for  arithmetic,  language, 
history  and  geography;  and  100  minutes  for  opening  exercises,  play 
and  rest,  science,  music  and  drawing.  Outside  the  school  these  same 
children  to  have  some  work  and  some  play  along  with  their  study, 
in  useful  work  for  probably  more  than  950  hours  each  year. 

It  was  the  industrial  training  in  the  home  and  small  shop 
that  made  children  of  the  past  generation  reliable,  industrious, 
physically  strong  and  contributed  much  to  their  general  intelligence. 
The  schools  plus  the  home  and  the  small  shop  educated  the  child.  To- 
day the  small  shop  has  been  eliminated  and  the  home  has  lost  many  of 
its  former  opportunities  for  industrial  training.  A  much  greater  part 
of  the  education  of  the  child  must  be  assumed  by  the  school  of  the 
present  generation.  In  place  of  the  school,  home  and  shop,  we  have 
today  the  school  and  the  city  street  educating  the  great  masses 
of  children  by  industrial  training  in  the  school.  The  students  of  the 
consequently  the  children  as  a  rule  are  thrown  into  the  street  for  the 
time  formerly  used  by  the  home  and  the  small  shop. 

It  is  true  that  we  have  in  the  schools  a  little  manual  training  and 
are  now  talking  about  pre-vocational  and  vocational  training.  But 
the  school  still  considers  the  problem  entirely  from  the  standpoint  of 
how  to  do  a  little  of  the  industrial  training  with  the  least  disturbance 
of  its  traditional  program  and  with  the  least  inconvenience  to  itself. 
What  we  really  need,  however,  is  a  complete  reorganization  of  the  en- 
tire elementary  school  system  to  meet  new  conditions.  Patch  work 
will  not  do,  and  besides  it  is  expensive.  Under  such  reorganization, 
the  school  would  do  what  the  school,  home  and  small  shop  formerly 
did  together.  But  this  does  not  mean  that  in  order  to  have  work  and 
play  the  time  should  be  taken  from  study. 

No  strange  distracting  factor  is  to  be  added  to  the  educational  life 
of  children,  for  the  established  school  has  refused  to  change  and 
past  generation  had  industrial  training  in  the  home  and  shop  at  the 
same  time  that  they  pursued  the  scholastic  work  of  the  public  school 
and  college.  Work,  study  and  play  have  always  been  considered  good 
things  for  children  and  it  has  always  been  considered  desirable  for 
children  were  helping  their  fathers,  mothers,  older  brothers  and  sisters 
The  idea  that  children  should  study  exclusively  for  eight  years  and 
then  work  exclusively  for  the  rest  of  their  life  time  is  really  a  new 
idea  in  civilization.  The  criticism  of  the  modern  public  school  is  di- 
rected almost  entirely  at  the  helplessness  of  children  who  are  attempt- 
ing to  enter  industrial  and  commercial  life  from  this  exclusive  study 
period  of  eight,  twelve,  or  sixteen  years  in  the  schools,  and  the  fact 
that  the  school  is  not  able  to  get  much  more  than  half  of  its  children 
beyond  the  sixth  grade  of  the  common  school. 

It  Is  Not  Enough  to  Provide  Vocational  School  "Hospitals"  for 
the  Mental  and  Industrial  Cripples  We  Are  Steadily  Turning 
Out. 

The  unnatural  life  that  the  average  child  spends  in  an  exclusive 
study  school  and  tne  city  street  fails  to  develop  reliability,  industry, 

46 


good  health  and  intelligence.  The  school  in  over  crowded,  poorly  ven- 
tilated class  rooms  and  with  its  repression  of  physical  activities  makes 
many  children  anemic  and  tubercular,  and  then  establishes  open-air 
classes,  to  cure  the  children  that  it  has  made  sick.  In  the  same  way 
tke  school  now  plans  to  turn  the  children,  who  have  been  in  school 
for  eight  to  twelve  years  and  have  failed  to  secure  a  preparation  for 
life's  work,  into  a  vocational  school  hospital  to  repair  the  moral,  men- 
tal and  industrial  cripples  made  by  the  school  before  sending  them 
into  industries.  No  amount  of  money  spent  on  these  special  school 
hospitals  will  ever  atone  for  the  wasted  life  of  a  child  strapped  to 
school  seats  and  loafing  in  the  city  streets  for  eight  or  twelve  years. 
We  do  not  need  special  types  of  schools  so  much  as  we  need  a  reorgan- 
ization of  the  schools  that  we  have  so  that  they  will  train  our  children 
for  complete  living. 

We  hear  much  talk  concerning  misfits,  children  not  being  able  to 
get  on  in  the  traditional  school,  children  leaving  the  school  without 
any  training  for  life's  work,  etc.  We  school  administrators  insist, 
however,  that  under  no  conditions  must  the  traditional  school  be 
changed.  There  is  something  wonderfully  sacred  apparently  about  this 
traditional  institution.  All  admit  that  the  school  today  does  not  fit  the 
children,  but  we  insist  that  it  is  not  the  fault  of  the  school.  Just  because 
home  conditions  have  changed,  just  because  industrial  and  commer- 
cial conditions  have  changed,  just  because  the  school  has  to  deal  with 
a  new  type  of  boy  and  girl  is  no  reason  why  the  school  should  change 
too.  Because  the  home,  industry,  commerce,  social  conditions,  and  boys 
and  girls  have  been  so  foolish  as  to  change  is  no  reason  why  the 
schools  should  be  equally  foolish,  especially  when  it  may  be  incon- 
venient for  us  managers  of  schools  to  make  the  desired  changes.  The 
schools  exist  principally  to  be  managed,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
managers.  Even  a  sense  of  personal  ownership  often  develops  in  the 
management  of  public  institutions.  I  am  told  that  the  Commandant  of 
a  certain  U.  S.  Navy  Yard  died  leaving  a  will  in  which  he  bequeathed 
the  Navy  Yard  to  his  son. 

A  School  System  for  the  Child,   Not  for  the  Administration. 

It  is  almost  impossible  for  the  managers  of  any  institution  to  sub- 
ject their  personalities  and  not  consider  their  own  convenience  in  the 
development  of  their  institutions.  When  they  have  made  their  insti- 
tutions what  they  want  them  to  be,  of  course  they  do  not  wish  to  be 
disturbed  by  changes. 

Thousands  of  children  may  waste  their  lives  in  schools  that 
do  not  meet  their  needs,  but  we  school  administrators  say  that  nothing 
can  be  done  about  it.  We  must  compel  all  children  to  go  to  these  mal- 
adjusted schools  for  eight  years  and  waste  their  lives  in  order  that  we 
may  find  out  whether  they  fit  the  school  or  not.  Then  we  will  provide 
special  school  hospitals  for  the  children  who  have  succumbed  and  en- 
deavor by  special  treatment  to  restore  their  moral,  intellectual,  indus- 
trial and  physical  good  health  by  giving  them  a  school  adapted  to  their 

47 


needs,  provided  somebody  will  furnish  us  fifty  millions  of  money  to 
provide  the  special  school  hospitals  and  the  doctors. 

I  am  in  favor  of  an  elementary  school  system  that  really  trains  all 
of  its  children  and  keeps  the  children  in  school  until  sixteen  years  of 
age.  The  greater  part  of  the  high  school  course  should  be  completed 
in  such  elementary  schools.  I  am  in  favor  of  a  secondary  school  sys- 
tem for  the  continuation  and  extension  of  the  work  begun  in  the  ele- 
mentary schools  and  for  its  specialization  in  vocational  schools,  pro- 
fessional schools,  etc.  But  I  am  not  in  favor  of  any  kind  of  a  school 
designed  to  repair  the  children  crippled  in  their  educational  develop- 
ment because  of  an  elementary  school  system  that  is  out  of  joint  with 
the  times.  The  only  possible  remedy  for  such  a  situation  is  to  make 
the  ordinary  elementary  school  system  do  the  job  for  the  doing  of 
which  we  are  maintaining  the  institution.  This  can  be  done  by  add- 
ing facilities  and  time  for  work  and  play. 

The  public  now  understands  quite  clearly  that  the  successful  rear- 
ing of  children  is  as  much  a  social  and  economic  problem  as  it  is  a 
pedagogical  problem.  No  longer  is  the  public  going  to  permit  the 
pedagogue  to  dictate  school  conditions  regardless  of  social  and  eco- 
nomic needs. 

In  the  reorganization  of  the  Bronx  schools  we  plan  to  take  over 
as  far  as  necessary  not  only  the  actual  industrial  training  formerly 
given  by  the  home  and  small  shop,  but  also  the  time  the  child  formerly 
spent  at  industrial  training  in  the  home  and  small  shop  and  for 
children  of  all  ages.  Only  by  such  a  complete  reorganization  can  the 
school  give  industrial  training  and  play  and  at  the  same  time  maintain 
a  high  standard  of  academic  work  so  that  the  industrial  training  may 
be  equally  advantageous  to  the  boy  or  girl  who  goes  to  high  school 
from  the  elementary  school  or  to  college  from  the  high  school,  and  to 
the  boy  or  girl  who  goes  into  industry  or  commerce  from  the  elemen- 
tary school  or  high  school. 

COMPARISON  OF  COSTS. 

It  is  futile  to  plan  a  school  system  without  counting  the  cost.  It  is 
tremendously  expensive  to  make  children  sick  and  then  provide  hos- 
pitals and  doctors  to  cure  them.  I  do  not  object  to  curing  the  sick,  but 
it  is  economy  to  keep  people  well  physically,  morally,  socially,  econom- 
ically, and  every  other  way. 

By  spending  $1,000,000.00  for  two  new  public  schools  in  the  Bronx 
District  under  consideration  you  will  have  satisfactory  school  seats  for 
only  671  classes  and  about  30,000  children.  But  there  are  now  35,580 
children  in  the  schools  and  by  the  time  the  buildings  proposed  are 
completed  there  will  probably  be  6,000  more.  Also  the  schools  thus  se- 
cured would  not  be  able  to  do  the  industrial  and  physical  training 
formerly  done  by  the  home  and  the  shop,  unless  special  pre-vocational 
schools  sufficient  to  accommodate  at  least  5,000  children  were  provided. 
If  you  will  take  the  initial  cost  of  a  typical  pre-vocational  school  plant 
and  its  annual  maintenance  and  daily  attendance  as  a  unit,  you  can 

48 


soon  estimate  the  tremendous  cost  of  providing  such  school  hospitals. 
Besides  the  special  pre-vocational  school  must  work  at  a  great  disad- 
vantage, for  it  has  the  task  of  correcting  the  bad  results  of  a  malad-- 
justed  elementary  school  before  it  can  undertake  the  real  work  of 
educating  its  children. 

The  proposed  expenditures  for  the  reorganization  are  approxi- 
mately $525,000.00  for  building  and  equipment  and  $225,000.00  for  land, 
a  total  of  $750,000.00  in  place  of  $1,000,000.00.  Accommodations  will  be 
provided  for  1,022  classes  and  46,000  children,  in  place  of  671  class- 
rooms and  30,000  children.  Besides  all  children  will  have  380  minutes 
in  school  daily  in  place  of  300,  and  special  equipment  and  teachers 
for  shop  work,  science,  drawing,  play  and  physical  training  will  have 
been  provided. 

Thus  every  child  can  secure  as  much  physical  training,  scholastic 
training,  and  industrial  training  as  he  individually  needs,  because  all 
children  are  together  in  one  department  and  this  training  will  be  dis- 
tributed from  the  kindergarten  through  the  entire  elementary  school 
course.  The  development  of  character,  habits  of  industry,  reliability, 
good  health  and  the  growth  of  intelligence  require  time  and  should  be  a 
continuous  process  throughout  the  entire  life  of  the  child.  The  child 
needs  to  live  its  entire  life  in  the  best  possible  environment  and  under 
the  wisest  direction  of  its  activities  in  order  to  develop  latent  powers 
and  become  the  best  man  or  woman  that  it  is  possible  to  be. 

The  industrial  training  will  be  much  more  varied  and  more  thor- 
ough than  is  possible  in  the  short  courses  of  a  separate  pre-vocational 
or  trade  school.  And  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  need  of  sacrificing 
scholastic  training  for  industrial  and  science  training,  because  the 
time  for  industrial  and  science  training  is  not  taken  from  the  five 
hours  of  the  scholastic  school,  but  from  the  time  formerly  used  by  the 
home  and  small  shop  for  this  very  purpose,  which  time  is  now  worse 
than  wasted  in  the  city  street. 

WILLIAM  WIRT. 


Supplementary  Report 
Bronx  Schools 

At  the  request  of  Commissioner  John  Martin,  Chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Vocational  Schools,  I  have  prepared  a  supplementary 
report  showing  the  possibilities  of  present  Bronx  schools  under  con- 
struction with  a  minimum  expenditure  for  reorganization. 

The  following  table  shows  the  number  of  shops,  studios,  and  lab- 
oratories provided  for  each  school  without  increasing  the  number  of 
teachers  and  without  building  annexes.  The  operation  and  mainte- 
nance work  of  the  schools  should  support  the  equivalent  of  at  least 
ten  additional  shops: 


'o 

o 
o 
83 

C9 
| 

S 

1 

50 

1 

rawing 

I 

! 

e 

1 

1  1 

£           s     «        s  * 

fck  S          oJs&i^'^s'e? 

CQ 

o 

0     ^ 

02 

Q 

^ 

0 

$    s 

E-nCQlXil^OOIXiCQKjfiH^^ 

28 

53 

71 

84     1 

4 

2 

1 

1 

1    1 

1                                                                     11 

2 

36 

59 

72      1 

4 

2 

1 

1 

1 

11                                       1 

42 

40 

75 

64      1 

3 

2 

1 

1 

1 

1                             1 

6 

31 

40 

48      1 

2 

2 

1 

1 

1 

1 

50 

44 

69 

72      1 

4 

2 

1 

1 

1    1 

1 

44 

40 

69 

66      1 

3 

2 

1 

1 

1 

1 

5 

19 

27 

32      1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1        1 

53 

44 

59 

72      1 

4 

2 

1 

1 

1 

1                                                                                1 

40 

57 

96 

80      1 

4 

2 

1 

1 

1    1 

1                                       11                             1 

32 

29 

60 

48      1 

2 

2 

1 

1 

1 

1 

4 

46 

82 

64      1 

3 

2 

1 

1 

1 

1        1 

45 

41 

72 

64     1 

3 

2 

1 

1 

1    1 

111 

54 

44 

72      1 

4 

2 

1 

1 

1 

1                             1 

55 

44 

72     1 

4 

2 

1 

1 

1 

1                             1 

Am 

nex 

15 

24      1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

Totals 

583  779  934  15  46  28  15  15  13  4  1  1  2  4  3  3  3  3  3  2  2  2 
No.  Teachers  785  30  74  43  33 

The  above  is  a  minimum  reorganization  of  the  schools  listed. 
Principals  have  not  been  consulted  and  no  exact  study  has  been  made 
of  adaptation  of  particular  shops  to  the  several  schools.  But  a  rear- 
rangement of  the  shops  will  not  change  the  total  cost  materially. 

The  cost  of  the  proposed  limited  reorganization  will  be  approxi- 
mately as  follows: 

15  Music    Rooms    at $  350.00  $   5,250.00 

46  Science  jRooms  at 750  00  34,500  00 

28  Drawing  Rooms  at 300.00  8,400.'00 

15  Manual  Training  Rooms — Many  are  now  provided. 
15  Cooking  Rooms — Many  are  now  provided. 

13  Sewing   Rooms   at 615.00  7,995.00 

4  Millinery    Rooms    at 300.00  1,200.00 

1  Tailoring   Room   at 615.00  615.00 

1  Shoemaking    Room    at 300.00  300.00 

SO 


2  Pottery  Rooms  at 300.00  600.00 

4  Printing   Rooms   at 1,600.00  6,400.00 

3  Carpentry    Rooms    at 1,000.00  3,000.00 

3  Cabinet  Work  Rooms  at 1,200.00  3,600.00 

3  Painting  (Rooms   at 300.00  900.00 

3  Sheet  Metal  Work  Rooms  at 750.00  2,250.00 

3  Electrical  Work  Rooms  at 750.00  2,250.00 

2  Plumbing  Work  Rooms  at. 750.00  1,500.00 

2   Steam  &  Gas  Fitting  Rooms  at 750.00  1,500.00 

2  Machine  Shop  Rooms  at 3,500.00  7,000.00 

Total    $87,260.00 

Auditoriums,  equipment  completed. 

Approximately  7,000  ordinary  school  seats  and  desks  will  be  re- 
leased for  other  schools. 

NOT  A  QUESTION  OF  PROVIDING  FOR  PRESENT  CONGESTION 

ONLY. 

The  district  is  increasing  so  rapidly  in  population  that  the  con- 
struction of  the  annexes  should  be  gotten  under  way  at  once.  The  shop 
opportunities  and  other  accessory  facilities  will  be  enlarged  so  much 
by  the  construction  of  the  annexes,  that  the  successful  promotion  of 
the  entire  plan  will  be  assured. 

Also  the  purchase  of  additional  land  for  playground  purposes  must 
not  be  forgotten. 

Only  790  classes  can  be  accommodated  until  the  new  buildings 
under  construction,  Public  Schools  54  and  55,  are  ready  for  occupancy 
September  1st,  1916.  There  were  779  classes  registered  December  31, 
1914.  One  hundred  additional  class  rooms  will  be  needed  for  the  school 
year  of  1915  and  1916.  The  144  class  rooms  available  September  1st, 
1916,  will  provide  the  necessary  facilities  for  1916  and  1917,  and  prob- 
ably 1917  and  1918. 

The  building  of  the  annexes  is  absolutely  necessary  to  provide  the 
accessories  for  insuring  the  success  of  the  reorganization.  Besides  the 
additional  class  room  space  is  absolutely  necessary  to  accommodate 
the  children.  It  provides  room  for  approximately  100  additional 
classes.  At  the  present  rate  of  growth  the  annexes  proposed  and  the 
two  buildings  under  construction  will  not  take  care  of  the  increase  in 
school  population  beyond  June,  1918.  Additional  provision  must  be 
made  for  1918  and  1919,  provided  the  present  rate  of  increase  in 
population  continues  during  that  year.  I  do  not  know  of  any  way 
of  estimating  growth  in  population  that  far  in  the  future.  I  do  know, 
however,  that  the  assured  growth  in  population  in  the  immediate  fu- 
ture makes  the  building  of  the  annexes  absolutely  necessary. 

The  expenditure  of  $750,000.00  for  fifteen  schools  to  provide  for 
the  necessary  playgrounds  and  other  facilities  may  seem  like  a  large 
amount  to  spend  for  a  reorganization.  The  report  shows  clearly,  how- 
ever, that  whereas  there  are  now  only  583  satisfactory  class  rooms 
for  779  classes,  that  the  reorganization  will  provide  more  than  satis- 
factory accommodations  for  1,022  classes.  These  annexes  would  not 
be  necessary  to  provide  for  present  register  even  though  12,000  chil- 
dren are  now  on  part  time,  but  the  annexes  are  necessary  to  provide 
for  the  assured  tremendous  growth  in  population. 

51 


NOT  A  QUESTION   OF  CROWDING  CHILDREN  INTO   SCHOOLS, 

BUT  A  PLAN  FOR  CREATING  A  CHILD  WORLD 

WITHIN  THE  CITY. 

It  has  been  stated  that  to  spend  money  for  accessory  facilities  as 
I  have  proposed,  was  not  contemplated  when  the  matter  was  under  con- 
sideration during  the  summer  of  1914.  I  wish  to  call  attention  to  the 
following  from  my  report  of  July  30,  1914,  page  6: 

"It  must  be  understood,  however,  that  new  buildings  should  be 
erected  in  districts  where  children  have  too  far  to  go  to  present 
schools;  where  present  buildings  are  not  satisfactorily  located;  and 
where  present  buildings  are  unfit  for  use.  Also  many  buildings  should 
have  larger  playgrounds,  gymnasiums,  and,  in  my  opinion,  all  buildings 
should  have  swimming  pools.  A  few  buildings  should  have  audi- 
toriums added.  Most  of  the  old  buildings  without  auditoriums  should 
be  vacated  or  used  for  vocational  schools.  A  large  share  of  the  annual 
corporate  stock  issue  should  be  used  for  these  improvements  in  place 
of  using  the  entire  fund  for  additional  schools." 

I  am  now  pointing  out  in  detail  how  a  large  share  of  the  proposed 
corporate  stock  issue  for  new  schools  should  be  used  for  the  improve- 
ment of  present  plants  for  a  work-study-and-play  school  organization. 

I  have  submitted  definite  plans  for  the  reorganization  of 
schools  in  some  of  the  most  congested  sections  providing  accom- 
modations for  over  4,000  classes  including  kindergartens.  I  am 
proposing  to  expend  $1,500,000.00  for  increasing  the  capacity  of  these 
schools  from  2,400  satisfactory  class  rooms  to  satisfactory  accommoda- 
tions for  3,800  classes,  an  increase  of  1,400.  There  are  3,200  classes 
now  registered  in  these  schools,  which  is  800  classes  more  than  satis- 
factory class  rooms,  representing  approximately  36,000  children  with- 
out satisfactory  school  accommodations.  Three  of  the  districts  are 
growing  so  rapidly  in  population  that  there  is  an  immediate  assured 
necessity  for  the  600  classes,  representing  27,000  children,  provided  for 
by  the  work-study-and-play  school  reorganization  in  addition  to  the 
present  register. 

By  the  work-study-and-play  school  reorganization  a  six  hour 
school  day  is  provided  for  all  children  in  place  of  five,  without 
increasing  the  time  of  teachers.  In  addition  to  satisfactory  ac- 
commodations for  1,400  classes  the  $1,500,000.00  will  secure  the 
following  special  accessory  facilities: 

120  Music  teachers  and  studios. 

120  Drawing  teachers  and  studios. 

240  Science  teachers  and  laboratories. 
60  Manual  Training  teachers  and  laboratories,  completed. 

360  Prevocational  shop  teachers  and  shops  for  boys  and  girls. 

200  Special  teachers  of  physical  training  and  play. 
15  Swimming  Teachers  and  pools. 
60  Auditoriums,  equipment  completed. 

$500,000.00  expended  for  additional  outdoor  playgrounds. 

300  Unfit  class  rooms  are  abandoned. 

52 


A  reduction  of  $60,000.00  in  annual  expenditures  is  made  possible. 
Also  a  large  part  of  the  $1,500,000  can  be  secured  from  the  sale  of 
abandoned  school  properties. 

The  Board  of  Education  is  now  asking  for  approximately  $3,000,- 
000.00  for  the  relief  of  these  particular  schools  which  sum  provides 
for  only  240  additional  satisfactory  regular  class  rooms.  This  will 
give  school  accommodations  to  only  11,000  children  of  the  36,000  now 
without  accommodations  in  these  schools  and  makes  no  provision  for 
assured  future  growth  of  27,000  in  registration.  Besides  all  unsatisfac- 
tory school  plants  and  class  rooms  must  be  continued  in  use,  and  the 
annual  operating  cost  will  be  increased  at  least  $40,000,  not  counting 
interest  on  corporate  stock. 

Also  this  proposed  double  expenditure  will  not  provide  a  six  hour 
school  day  in  place  of  five,  for  all  children,  nor  will  it  provide  play 
space,  swimming  pools,  gymnasiums,  auditoriums,  shops,  studios, 
libraries  and  laboratories.  The  proposed  environment  for  keeping  chil- 
dren wholesomely  busy  at  work,  study  and  play  is  unattainable  by  the 
exclusive  study  school  plan. 

It  is  not  a  question  of  devising  a  complicated  school  program  for 
the  purpose  of  doubling  up  the  number  of  children  in  a  school  build- 
ing. I  desire  to  substitute  a  work-study-and-play  school  for  the  tradi- 
tional exclusive  study  school,  and  thus  create  a  child  world  within  the 
city  where  children  may  be  kept  busy  at  wholesome  work,  study 
and  play  for  all  of  the  time  that  they  should  be  so  occupied.  A  pro- 
gram is  necessary  for  distributing  the  children  in  the  work-study- 
and-play  facilities,  but  the  program  exists  only  to  make  possible  the 
most  advantageous  use  of  the  accessory  facilities  in  the  real  com- 
munity thus  created  for  children. 

PART  TIME  PROGRAM  APPLIED  TO  WORK-STUDY-AND-PLAY 

SCHOOL. 

I  am  often  asked  whether  a  part  time  program  can  be  applied  to 
a  work-study-and-play  school.  It  has  been  suggested  that  when  the 
fifteen  schools  included  in  the  Bronx  reorganization  have  the  registra- 
tion provided  for  in  the  work-study-and-play  school  reorganization,  that 
they  will  have  reached  the  saturation  point  and  no  additional  children 
can  be  accommodated  under  any  condition. 

On  the  contrary  a  forty-four  regular  class  school  which  has  been 
reorganized  for  a  sixty-four  class  school  at  work,  study  and  play  can 
be  made  to  accommodate  90  classes  of  children  grouped  as  three 
schools  X,  Y  and  Z  of  thirty  classes  each.  Under  such  a  program  the 
school  is  in  session  eight  hours  from  8:00  to  4:00,  or  8:30  to  4:30. 

Sixty  classes  in  the  intermediate  and  grammar  grades  have  a  320 
minute  daily  program  in  the  school  consisting  of  160  minutes  regular 
class  room  work  for  arithmetic,  language,  reading,  writing  and  spell- 
ing; eighty  minutes  for  laboratory  and  shop  work  including  history 
and  geography;  forty  minutes  play  and  physical  training;  and  forty 
minutes  auditorium  work.  In  addition  to  the  320  minutes  regular  as- 

53 


signment  there  is  provided  80  minutes  daily  for  religious  instruc- 
tion, library  work,  gardening,  excursions,  music  and  club  work,  and 
supplementary  play.  But  there  are  twenty  classes  of  intermediate  and 
grammar  grade  children  in  these  accessory  facilities  at  one  time. 
Those  who  cannot  be  accommodated  in  the  accessory  facilities  will 
remain  in  their  respective  homes  during  this  extra  eighty  minute 
period. 

The  thirty  classes  of  primary  children  have  160  minutes  regular 
class  room  work,  forty  minutes  auditorium  and  eighty  minutes  play 
and  physical  training.  Only  280  minutes  are  required  of  these  classes 
in  regular  assignment,  but  each  class  has  120  minutes  daily  for  acces- 
sory facilities  as  far  as  these  facilities  can  accommodate  them. 

Following  is  a  schedule  of  classes  for  an  X,  Y  and  Z  School: 

WORK-STUDY- AND-PLAY  SCHOOL  PART  TIME  PROGRAM  No.  1 

30  classes  in 
music,  clubs, 
gardens,  ex- 
cursions, li- 
ft r  a  r  y  t 
church  and 
home. 


Hours 


30  classes 

in 
30   class  rooms 


10  classes 
in  Aud. 


10  classes 
at  Play 


10  classes 
at  Labs. 


8  :00-  8:40 
8:40-  9  :20 

9  :20-10:00 
10  :00-10:40 
10:40-11:20 
11:20-12  :00 
12:00-12:40 
12  :40-  1  :20 

1:20-  2  :00 
2:00-  2:40 
2:40-  3:20 
3:20-  4:00 
No.  Teachers 


X  Arith. 
X  Lang. 
Y  Arith. 
Y  Lang. 
Z  Arith. 
Z  Lang. 
X  Read. 
X  Read. 
Y  Read. 
Y  Read. 
Z  Read. 
Z  Read. 
30 


Y 

div. 

3* 

Y 

div. 

2 

Y 

div. 

2 

Y 

div. 

3 

Z 

div. 

3 

Z 

div. 

2 

Z 

div. 

2 

Z 

div. 

3 

Y 

div. 

3 

Y 

div. 

1 

Y 

div. 

1 

Y 

div. 

3 

z 

div. 

1 

Z 

div. 

3 

Z 

div. 

3* 

Z 

div. 

1 

X 

div. 

3 

X 

div. 

2 

X 

div. 

2 

X 

div. 

3 

X 

div. 

1 

X 

div. 

3 

X 

div. 

3* 

X 

div. 

1 

4 

4 

Y  div.  1 

Z 

Y  div.   1 

Z 

Z  div.  1 

X 

Z  div.  1 

X 

Y  div.  2 

X 

Y  div.  2 

X  Luncheon 

Z  div.  2 

X  Luncheon 

Z  div.  2 

Y  Luncheon 

X  div.  1 

Z   Luncheon 

X  div.  1 

Z 

X  div.  2 

Y 

X  div.  2 

Y 

14 

2      music.      2 
club,  leaders, 
1    excursion, 
1    gardener, 

and      I      li- 

brarian. 

NOTE — The  *  means  that  work  may  be  omitted. 

The  following  forty-minute  teaching  units  are  required: 

Class  rooms   

Auditorium   

Play    

Laboratories    

Accessory  Activities   


.360 
.  40 
.  48 
.168 
.  56 


Total.  . 


.672 


Each  teacher  is  responsible  for  eight  forty  minute  teaching  units, 
so  that  84  teachers  are  required  for  90  classes  of  children.  Including 
special  teachers  of  manual  training  and  cooking  and  also  drawing, 
music  and  physical  training  supervisors,  at  least  95  teachers  are  regu- 
larly employed  for  ninety  classes  of  children.  The  above  program  saves 
eleven  teachers  and  thus  uses  only  88%  per  cent  of  the  regular  ex- 


54 


penditures  for  teachers'  salaries  under  your  present  school  program. 
Since  with  the  play  yards  in  charge  of  special  teachers,  five  minutes 
is  sufficient  for  the  assembling  of  children,  each  teacher  has  330 
minutes  for  class  room  work  and  assembling  of  pupils  as  at  present. 

The  above  part  time  program  is  of  the  type  now  in  use  in  Public 
School  45,  The  Bronx.  It  provides  eighty  minute  periods  for  special 
work  for  intermediate  and  grammar  grades.  Forty  minute  play  and 
physical  training  periods  are  provided  daily  for  all  children  in  addi- 
tion to  the  after  school  athletic  center. 

Following  is  a  part  time  program  of  the  type  used  in  Public 
School  89,  Brooklyn.  It  provides  one  hundred  minute  periods  for  the 
special  work  of  the  grammar  grades,  and  only  sixty  minute  periods 
for  the  special  work  of  the  intermediate  grades.  Grammar  grades 
have  only  the  after  school  athletic  center  for  play  and  physical  train- 
ing. Intermediate  grades  have  one  fifty  minute  period  daily  for  play 
and  physical  training.  The  primary  grades  have  one  fifty  minute 
period  and  one  sixty  minute  period  daily  for  play. 

WORK-STUDY-AND-PLAY  SCHOOL  PART  TIME  PROGRAM  No.  2 

30-Classes  In 
Library, 
Church, 

30  Classes     10  Classes      10  Classes       10  Classes         Excur- 
School  in  30  in  Audi-       in  Gym.  and     in  10  Spe-  sions,  Clubs, 

Hours         Class  Rooms      torium        Playground    cial  Rooms       4  Shops 

8:00-   8:50  X  Y2  T3  Tl  Z 

8:50-  9:40  X  Y3  Y2  Yl  Z 

9:40-10:30  Y  Z2  Z3  Zl  X 

10:30-11:20  Y  Z3  Z2  Zl  X 

11:20-12:20  Z  Yl  Y3  Y2  X  Luncheon 

12:20-  1:20  X  Zl  Z3  Z?  Y  Luncheon 

1:20-  2:20  Y  XI  X3  X2  Z  Luncheon 

2:20-  3:10  Z  X3  X2  XI  Y 

3:10-   4:00  Z  X2  X3  XI  Y 

4:00-  5:00  XYZ1 

Total  Teachers           —51—                                 6  18  10 

Only   85   teachers   are   employed   for   the   90   classes. 

A  forty-four  room  school  might  be  used  to  accommodate  three 
schools  of  twenty-seven  classes  each,  a  total  of  eighty-one  classes  with 
the  following  division  of  facilities: 

In  twenty-seven  class  rooms  each  pupil  is  given  daily  160  minutes 
regular  class  work  in  arithmetic,  reading,  writing,  spelling  and  lan- 
guage. In  nine  class  rooms  each  pupil  in  the  grammar  grades  is 
given  one  hundred  minutes  and  in  the  intermediate  grades  eixty 
minutes  daily  for  history,  geography,  music  and  drawing.  Bight 
class  rooms  for  shops  and  science  laboratories  accommodate  700  stu- 
dents for  one  hundred  minutes  daily. 

With  public  library  facilities,  opportunity  for  excursions,  club 
work  and  religious  instruction,  the  majority  of  the  children  could  be 
given  a  420  minute  school  day  consisting  of  the  following  activities: 

55 


Number  of  Minutes  Provided 

Subjects  Inter. 

Grammar  mediate  Primary 

Grades  Grades     Grades 
Arithmetic,  Reading,  Spelling,  Writing  and 

Language    ; 160  160          160 

History,  Geography,  Music  and  Drawing...    100  60 

Auditorium     60  50            50 

Shop  Work   (700  students) 100 

Library,   Excursions,   Church    100          100 

Play   and   Physical   Training 50          110 

After   School   Athletic   Center 60 


Total  Time 480          420          420 

The  program  for  the  distribution  of  time  and  activities  is  so 
elastic  that  it  may  be  adapted  to  meet  the  needs  of  any  school  and 
almost  any  child. 

With  the  X,  Y  and  Z  school  the  children  can  be  given  a  longer 
school  day  and  greater  facilities  than  your  regular  five  hour  full  time 
school  provides.  Also  it  may  be  operated  with  only  88^  per  cent  of 
the  regular  expenditures  for  teachers'  salaries.  The  fifteen  schools  in- 
cluded in  the  Bronx  reorganization  have  accommodations  for  30,000 
children  with  the  traditional  five  hour  full  time  school  and  46,000  with 
the  work-study-and-play  school  organization  with  an  expenditure  of 
$750,000.00  for  accessory  facilities.  Should  these  schools  become 
crowded  as  work-study-and-play  schools  the  children  can  be  given  an 
X,  Y  and  Z  school  program  which  provides  much  greater  facilities 
than  the  regular  five  hour  full  time  school  and  the  capacity  can  be  in- 
creased 40  per  cent,  or  from  46,000  to  64,000. 

But  I  recommend  the  X,  Y,  Z  School  only  as  a  temporary  expedi- 
ent. We  can  afford  better  schools  for  our  children  than  such  a  plan 
provides,  even  though  it  is  better  than  the  traditional  full  time  five 
hour  school.  It  is  not  a  question  of  providing  an  equivalent  for  the 
five  hour  full  time  school,  but  a  question  of  providing  an  environment 
where  children  may  be  kept  busy  at  wholesome  work,  study  and  play 
for  all  of  the  time  that  they  should  be  so  occupied. 

WILLIAM  WIRT. 


56 


APPENDIX 

Table  from  the  Official  Statement  of  the  Board  of  Estimate  and 
Apportionment  of  New  York  City,  May  9,  1916,  showing  the  details  of 
the  proposed  reorganization  of  the  city  schools  on  the  duplicate-school  plan. 


Summary  Statement  Showing  Existing  Conditions,  Increase  in  School  Capacity  Provided  by 
School  Plans.  Also  Amount  of  Part  Time  and  Double  Sessions  Eliminated  and  Additional 


Existing  No.  of 

Ij 

0^ 

oS 

"I 

Rooms. 

I^Q 

Su 

|«J 

| 

s| 

g||. 

Go 

o  ** 

g'JJ      ^ 

•a 

^ 

&1S3 

t£ 

|w  | 

District  No. 

Public  School  Nos. 

>•  ""D 

sl 

s2 

11  - 

%  i_ 

£    |H    § 

fill 

1 

caw 

,£ 
o 

_rt  o 

Sr 

51 

|wg§ 

llll 

ill 

it! 

|^ 

3 

1° 

1^ 

ia" 

las 

I.     Past  and  Proposed  Appropriations  for 


17  and  16... 

Manhattan  — 
72,  83,  101,  121,  168,  171, 
109  

375 

24 

440 

492 

52 

117 

25  and  26... 

The  Bronx— 
2,  4,  5,  6,  28,  32,  40,  42,  44, 
45  50  53 

490 

49 

825 

854 

29 

364 

25  and  26  . 

New  54  and  55 

92 

144 

144 

52 

23 

30  and  43     

109 

135 

156 

21 

47 

31  and  34.  .  . 

39  and  40.  .  . 
38.. 

Brooklyn  — 
16,  19,  33,  122,  50,  143 
(drop  High  School),  22, 
23,  31,  51  (use  as  High 
School  Annex),  110,  132, 
abandon  37,  166,  20,  59, 
19  Annex  
66,  109,  125,  150,  156,  165, 
175,64,72,149,173,174 
89  

513 

603 
26 

73 

7 

632 

754 
41 

680 

914 

48 

48 

160 

7 

167 

311 

22 

28  
42  

6  and  142  to  relieve  78,  32, 
46,  27  and  30  
Queens  — 
6  

206 

35 

8 

236 

44 

296 

54 

60 
10 

90 
19 

Total  

2,449 

161 

3,107 

3,638 

531 

1,189 

Cost  per  capita  

II.     Provision  of  New  Buildings 


25 

The  Bronx- 
New,  179th  St.  and  Third 

Ave.                  

72 

72 

72 

39  and  40... 

Brooklyn  — 
New,    Dumont,    Sheffield 
and  Pennsylvania  Aves 

72 

72 

72 

38  

New,  Snyder  Ave.  and  E. 

33rd  St  

72 

72 

72 

Total  

216 

216 

216 

Cost  per  capita  

III.     Provision  for  Replacement 


31  

Brooklyn  — 
New  20,  to  replace  17,  17a 

and  38 

51 

64 

72 

8 

'  72 

28 

New  29,  to  replace  29,  13 

and  58  

63 

73 

72 

—1 

72 

Total  

.... 

114 

137 

144 

7 

144 

Cost  per  capita  

Grand  Total,  Entire  Dupli- 
cate School  Proposition. 

2,449 

275 

3,244 

3,998 

754 

1,549 

Cost  per  capita  

aP.  S.  45,  estimated.     ftCost  is  estimated  on  the  basis  of  $10,000  per  classroom,except 
started,  in  which  $12,500  is  used  as  the  cost  per  classroom.     c!6  Annex.    ^Decrease.     eP.S. 


eorganization,  Together  with  Comparative  Costs  Thereof  Under  Ddplicatc'  and  Traditional 
Capacity  Available  for  Reduction  of  Over-Size  Classes,  for  Growth  iixi  for  Higit  Schoo! Purposes 


II 


& 


No  of  Pupils  on 
Part   Time. 


13 

O  O 


•35 


No.  of  Pupils  on 
Double  Session. 


ifs 


.S     < 

N 
*  >/ 


S?o 

& 


>tfl 

5liM 


iti 
uir 
ize 


8 


Jo£ 
o 


Elimination  of  Part-Time  and  Double  Sessions. 


$395,766  00 

1,090,356  00 
1,088,418  71 
73,530  00 

/  c!12,300  00 
213,190  00 
389,015  00 
50,000  00 

129,160  00 
53,595  00 

$1,117,000  00 

3,640,000  00 
61,738,418  71 
470,000  00 

c!12,300  00 
1,510,000  00 
3,110,000  00 
220,000  00 

900,000  00 
190,000  00 

2,693 
3,091 

a5,377 

20,195 
36,024 

45.9 
43.7 

62 

54 

—  <Z25 
144 
17 

20 

68 
8 

40 

9 

281 

10,422 

a6,687 

}  1,927 
6,469 

2,275 

4,288 
7,179 

el',335 

5,681 

27,062 

34,692 
1,639 

10,510 

1,856 
137,659 

42.1 

42.8 

46.0 
40.0 

44.5 
42.2 

4 

28 

92 
—dl 

20 
+1 

474 
503 



1,438 

273 
21,237 

$3,595,330  71 

$13,007,718  71 

19,795 

6,687 

6,712 

44.3 

250 

26,482 

27,949 

$73  39 

$265  54 

for  Future  Growth. 


$668,474  00 

$900,000  00 

72 

627,926  50 

900,000  00 

72 

615,474  00 

900,000  00 

72 

$1,911,874  50 

/$2,700,000  00 

216 

$215  88 

$304  88 

of  Old  Buildings. 


$783,474  00 
703,474  00 

$900,000  00 
900,000  00 

308 
158 



962 
636 

.... 

2,538 
3,253 

39.7 

45.1 

—  d2 
+6 

10 

—  dl 

$1,486,948  00 

/$  1,800,000  00 

466 

1,598 

5,791 

.... 

4 

3 

$251  85 

$304  88 

$6,994,153  21 

$17,507,718  71 

20,261 

6,687 

22,835 

6,712 

143,450 

44.2 

254 

500 

26,948 

29,547 

$118  22 

$295  93 

....  |.... 

for  additional  capacity  in  New  54  and  55,  under  construction  before  reorganization  was 
89,  estimated.    /Cost  per  classroom  is  estimated  at  $12,500. 


PUBLIC  EDUCATION  ASSOCIATION  OF  THE    _ 
CITY  OF  NEW  YORK 

The  Public  Education  Association  was  founded  in  1895  to 
study  the  problems  of  public  education,  investigate  the  condition 
of  the  common  and  corporate  schools,  stimulate  public  interest 
in  the  schools  and  propose  from  time  to  time  such  changes  in 
organization,  management  or  educational  methods  as  might  seem 
necessary  or  desirable.  Its  efforts  are  confined  to  the  welfare  of 
the  New  York  City  public  schools,  but  it  seeks  to  shape  these 
efforts  in  accord  with  the  best  educational  theory  and  experience 
of  the  country. 

OFFICERS 

CHARLES  P.  HOWLAND,  President 

JOSEPH  R.  SWAN,   Vice- President 

MRS.  SCHUYLER  VAN  RENSSELAER,  Honorary  Vice- President 

W.  K.  BRICE,  Treasurer 
HOWARD  W.  NUDD,  Director 

EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE 

MRS.  MIRIAM  SUTRO  PRICE,  Chairman 
LEONARD  P.  AYRES  Miss  C.  R.  LOWELL 

W.  K.  BRICE  J.  K.  PAULDING 

CLYDE  FURST  GEORGE  D.  STRAYER 

MRS.  E.  C.  HENDERSON  MRS.  JOSEPH  R.  SWAN 

CHARLES  P.  HOWLAND  Miss  E.  S.  WILLIAMS 

TRUSTEES 

CHESTER  ALDRICH  MRS.  GEORGE  MCANENY 

FREDERICK  W.  ALLEN  FRANK  M.  MCMURRY 

W.  K.  BRICE  OGDEN  L.  MILLS 

CHARLES  C.  BURLINGHAM  MRS.  MIRIAM  SUTRO  PRICE 

JOSEPH  P.  COTTON  MRS.  F.  Louis  SLADE 

MRS.  ARTHUR  M.  DODGE  WILLARD  D.  STRAIGHT 

MRS.  LEARNED  HAND  PERCY  S.  STRAUS 

MRS.  E.  C.  HENDERSON  CHARLES  H.  STRONG 

CHARLES  P.  HOWLAND  JOSEPH  R.  SWAN 

Miss  C.  R.  LOWELL  MRS.  CHARLES  L.  TIFFANY 
Miss  HELEN  WISE 

The  work  of  the  Association  is  carried  out  through  a  trained 
staff  and  a  number  of  standing  and  special  committees.  The 
results  of  this  work  are  presented  to  the  members  and  to  the 
public  through  reports,  bulletins,  leaflets,  public  conferences  and 
discussion  in  the  daily  press. 

Every  citizen  should  be  informed  about  the  conditions 
and  progress  of  the  public  schools  and  take  an  intelligent 
and  effective  part  in  furthering  their  welfare. 

If  you  are  not  a  member  of  the  Association  you  are 
invited  to  join. 


PUBLICATIONS   OF    THE    PUBLIC    EDUCATION 
ASSOCIATION 

In  addition  to  the  general  reports  of  the  work  from  year  to 
year,  the  Association  has  published  the  following  bulletins  and 
special  reports: 

BULLETINS  : 

No.    i.    Organization  and  Program. 

*No.     2.    The  Permanent  Census  Board — Howard  W>  Nudd. 
No.    3.     Conferences. 

No.    4,     Enlarged  Work  of  the  Association. 
No.     5.     The  Report  of  Professor  Moore. 
No.     6.     Is  the  Moore  Report  "  Fa!  se  "  ? 

*No.     7.    The  Current  Activities  of  tne  Public  Education  Association. 
*No.    b.     Work  for  the  Mentally  Defective  Children  in  New  York  City. 

No.     9.     Shall  the  Schools  Serve  Luncheons? 

*No.  10.     Vocational  Guidance  Survey — Alice  Barrows  Fernandez. 
No.  u.    An  Old  Story  with  a  New  Name.    Chapter      I.  i 
No.  12.     An  Old  Story  with  a  New  Name.     Chapter    II.  I  ° 
No.  13.    An  Old  Story  with  a  New  Name.     Chapter  III.  j     BUI* 
No.  14.     An  Old  Story  with  a  New  Name.     Chapter  IV.  J 
No.  15.     Report  of  the  Visiting  Teachers — Mary  Flexner. 
*No.  it.    The  Compulsory  Attendance  Service  of  New  York  City — Dr. 

Jesse  D.  Burks.! 

tNo.  17.     Elementary  school  Problems-— Dr.  Frank  M.  McMurry4 
tNo.  1 8.     The  New  York  School  System  of  General  Supervision  and  Board 

of  Examiners— Dr.  Edward  C.  Elliott.J 

tNo.  19.    Commercial  Education — Dr.  Frank  V.  Thompson.}: 
tNo.  20.    The  Course  of  Study  in  the  High  Schools  of  New  York  City— 

Dr.  Calvin  O.  Davis,  i 
No.  21.    A  Study  of  the  Feeble-Minded  in  a  West  Side  School  in  New 

York  City—Elizabeth  A.  Irwin. 
No.  22.    The  Board  of  Education  and  the  Professional  Staff— Dr.  Charles 

W.  Eliot. 

No.  23.     The  Schools  of  Gary — Harriet  M.  Johnson. 
No    24.     A  Small  Board  of  Education  for  New  York  City — Howard  W. 

Nudd. 
No.  25.    An  Unpaid  Board  of  Nine  for  the  New  York  City  Schools — 

Howard  W.  Nudd. 

No.  26.  What  the  Gary  Plan  Means  for  the  New  York  City  Schools- 
Howard  W.  Nudd. 

No.  27.     Home  Rule  in  Education  for  New  York  City. 
No.  28.    A  Gary  School's  Success  in  New  York  City— a  report  by  As- 
sociate Superintendent  William  McAndrew. 

No.  29.  "Evaluating"  the  Gary  Schools  in  New  York  City— A  Critical 
Analysis  of  the  Report  of  Dr.  Burdette  R.  Buckingham  by  How- 
ard^', Nudd. 

REPORTS  : 

*Report  on  the  Feeble-Minded  in  New  York — Dr.  Anne  Moore. 
*Brief  on  the  Education  Chapter  of  the  Proposed  Charter. 

A  Primer  of  Public  School  Progress. 

§  Colored  School  Children  in  New  York— Frances  Blascoer. 
^Truancy — Elizabeth  A.  Irwin. 

A  Description  of  the  Bureau  of  Compulsory  Education  of  the  City  of 

Philadelphia— Howard  W.  Nudd. 

tOfficial  Wirt  Reports  to  the  Board  of  Education  of  New  York  City. 
JThe  Visiting  Teacher  in  New  York  City — Harriet  M.  Johnson. 

*Out  of  print.    |i5C.  per  copy     §250.  per  copy.    tAbstracts  of  New  York  School  Inquiry  Reports 


14  DAY  USE 

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